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AMERICA 



AND 



HEK COMMENTATORS 

WITH A CRITICAL SKETCH OP 

TRAVEL IN THE UNITED STATES, 

BY ^ "" 

HENRY t/TUCKERMAN. 



Here the free spirit of mantind, at length 
Throws its last fetters off: and who shall place 

A limit to the giant's unchained strength, 
Or curb his swiftness in the forward race ? 

For thou, mv country, thou shalt never fall, 
Save with thy children; — 

Who shall then declare 

The date of thy deep-founJed strength, or tell 
How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell ? 

Bryant: The Ages, 



NEW YORK: 
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET. 

1864. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1,861, by 

HENRY T. TUCKEEMAN, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 
of New Tork. 



JOHN F. TROW, 

PEI>TER, STEHEOTYPER, AND ELECTROTYPER, 

m, 48, & 50 Greene St., New York. 






B^BU 



21 



PREFACE. 



The object of tliis work is twofold — to present a gen- 
eral view of the traits and transitions of our country, as 
recorded at different periods and by writers of varions 
nationalities ; and to afford those desirous of authentic 
information in regard to the United States a guide to the 
sources thereof. Incidental to and naturally growing out 
of this purpose, is the discussion of the comparative value 
and interest of the principal critics of our civilization. 
The present seems a favorable time for such a retrospective 
review ; and the need of popular enlightenment, both at 
home and abroad, as to the past development and present 
condition of this Republic, is universally acknowledged. 
There are special and obvious advantages in reverting to 
the past and examining the present, through the medium 
of the literature of American Travel. It affords strikino; 
contrasts, oflters different points of view, and is the more 
suggestive because modified by national tastes. We can 
thus trace physical and social development, normal and 
casual traits, through personal impressions ; and are un- 
consciously put on the track of honest investigation, made 
to realize familiar tendencies under new aspects, and, from 
the variety of evidence, infer true estimates. Moreover, 
some of these raconteurs are interesting characters either 



IV PREFACE. 

in ail liistorical or literary point of view, and form an 
attractive biographical study. In a work intended to 
suggest rather than exhaust a subject so extensive, it has 
been requisite to dismiss briefly many boohs which, in 
themselves, deserve special consideration ; but whose 
scope is too identical with other and similar volumes de- 
scribed at length, to need the same full examination. It 
is not always the specific merits of an author, but the 
contrast he ofters or the circumstances under which he 
writes, that have induced what might otherwise seem too 
elaborate a discussion of his claims. In a word, variety 
of subject and rarity of material have been kept in view, 
with reference both to the space awarded and the extracts 
given. The design of the work might, indeed, have been 
indefinitely extended ; but economy and suggestiveness 
have been chiefly considered. 

Many of the works discussed are inaccessible to the 
general reader ; others are prolix, and would not reward 
a consecutive perusal, though worthy a brief analysis ; 
while not a few are too superficial, and yield amusement 
only when the grains of wit or wisdom are separated 
from the predominant chaflf. It is for these reasons, and 
in the hope of vindicating as well as illustrating the 
claims and character of our outraged nationality, that I 
have prepared this inadequate, but, I trust, not wholly 
unsatisfactory critical sketch of Travel in the United 
States. Those who desire to examine minutely the his- 
torical aspects of the prolific theme, will find, in the 
" Bibliotheca Americana " of Rich, a catalogue of an- 
cient works full of interest to the philosophical student. 
Another valuable list is contained in " Historical Nug- 
gets," a descriptive account of rare books relating to 
America, by Henry Stevens (2 vols., London, 1§5S) ; and 
the proposed " American Bibliographer's Manual," a dic- 
tionary of all works relating to America, by Joseph 



PREFACE. V 

Sabin, of PMladelpliia, will, if^execnted with the care 
and completeness promised, supersede all other manuals, 
and prove of great utility. No fact is more indicative of 
the increased interest in all that relates to our country, 
than the demand for the earlier records of its life, prod- 
ucts, and history ; * while the foreign bibliography of the 
war for the Union, and the American record and discus- 
sions thereof, have been already collected or are in process 
of collection under Government auspices.f 

* " If the price of old books ancnt America, whetlicr native or foreign, 
should continue to augment in value in the same ratio as they have done for 
the last thirty years, their prices must become fabulous, or, rather, like the 
books of the Sibyls, rise above all valuation. In the early part of the pres- 
ent century, the " Bay Hymn Book " (the first book printed in North Amer- 
ica), then an exceedingly rare book, no one would have supposed would bring 
$100 ; now, a copy was lately sold for nearly $600, and a perfect copy, at this 
time, would bring ^1,000. Eliot's " Grammar of the Indian Tongues" was 
lately sold for $160 — a small tract. The same author's version of the Scriptures 
into the Indian language could be purchased, fifty years ago, for S50 ; now it is 
worth $500. For Cotton Mather's " Magnalia Christi Americana," .§6 was then 
thought a good price ; now, $50 is thought cheap for a good copy. Smith's 
" History of Virginia," $S0 ; now $75. Stith's " History of Virginia," then 
$5, now $20. Smith's " History of Xew Jersey," then $2, now $20. Thomas's 
" History of Printing," then $2, now $15. Denton's " History of New Neth- 
erlands," $5, now $50. These are but a few out of many hundreds that 
could be named, that have risen from trifling to extraordinary prices, in the 
short space of half a century." — Western Memorabilia. 

\ " The importance of this subject has been more directly brought to our 
notice in the examination of the foundation of a " Collection of European 
Opinion upon the War," now before Congress for the use of the membei's, and 
to be deposited in the Congress Library. This desirable collection is to com- 
prise the various pamphlets, speeches, debates, and brochures of all kinds 
that have appeared in reference to the war, from the attack on Fort Sumter to 
the present day, and to be continued to the end of the struggle. We have 
the leading editorials, arranged with great care in chronological order, from 
the most powerful representatives of the public press in England, France, 
Germany, &c. ; also, the correspondence from both armies in the field, of the 
special agents sent for that purpose. The various opinions expressed by emi- 
nent military and naval writers upon our new inventions in the art of war will 
well deserve study ; and the horoscope of the future, not only in our own 
country, but in its influences upon the welfare of the Old World, should be 
carefully pondered over by all political economists." — National Intelligencer. 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND TTRITERS Continued. 



PAGK 



Wansey; Cooper; Wilson; Davis; Ashe; Bristed; Kendall; Weld; 
Cobbett ; Campbell ; Byron ; Moore ; Mrs. Wakefield ; Hodgson ; 
Janson; Caswell; Holmes and others; Hall; Tearon; Fiddler; 
Lyell ; Featherstonaugh ; Combe ; Female Writers ; Dickens ; 
U Faux ; Hamilton ; Parkinson ; Mrs. Trollope ; Grattan ; Lord 
Carlisle ; Anthony Trollope ; Prentice ; Stirling 193 

CHAPTER VII. 
English Abuse of America 252 

CHAPTER VIII. 

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 

Kalm ; Miss Bremer ; Gurowski, and others ; German Writers : Saxe- 
Weimar ; Von Raumer ; Prince Maximilian Von Wied ; Lieber ; 
Schultz. Other German Writers : Grund ; Ruppius ; Seatsfield ; 
Kohl; Talvi; Schaff 293 

CHAPTER IX. 

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 

National Relations ; Verrazzano ; Castiglione ; D'AUessandro ; Capobian- 

00 ; Salvatore Abbate e Migliori ; Pisani 334 

CHAPTER X. 

AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 

John and William Bartram ; Madame Knight ; Ledyard ; Carver ; Jef- 
ferson ; Jmlay ; Dwight ; Coxe ; IngersoU ; Walsh ; Paulding ; 
\ Flmt; (?iinton; Hall; Tudor; Wirt; Cooper; Hoffman; Olmsted; 
Bryant; Government Explorations; Washington; Mrs. Kirkland; 
Irving. American Illustrative Literature: Biography; History; 
Manuals ; Oratory ; Romance ; Poetry. Local Pictures : Everett, 
Hawthorne, Channing, etc 3*71 

CHAPTER XI. 

Conclusion 438 

Index » 451 



INTEODUCTION. 



La Terre, says Fontenelle, est wne vieille coquette. While 
in so many branches of authorship the interest of books is 
superseded by new discoveries in science and superior art and 
knowledge, honest and intelligent books of travel preserve 
their use and charm, because they describe places and people 
as they were at distinct epochs, and confirm or dissipate sub- 
sequent theories. The point of view adopted, the kind of 
sympathy awakened, the time and the character of the writer 
— each or all give individuality to such works, when inspired 
by genuine observation, which renders them attractive as a 
reference and a memorial, and for purposes of comj^arison if 
not of absolute interest. Moreover the early travellers, or 
rather those who first record their personal experience of a 
country, naturally describe it in detail, and put on record 
their impressions with a candor rarely afterward imitated, 
because of that desire to avoid a beaten path which later 
writers feel. Hence, the most famiKar traits and scenes are 
apt to be less dwelt upon, the oftener they are described ; 
and, for a complete and naive account, we must revert to 
primitive travels, whose quaintness and candor often atone 
for any incongruities of style or old-fashioned prolixity. 

A country that is at all suggestive, either through associa- 
tion or intrinsic resources, makes a constant appeal to genius, 
to science, and to sympathy ; and offers, under each of these 
1 



2 INTKODUCTION. 

aspects, an infinite variety, Arthur Young's account of 
France, just before the Revohition, cannot be superseded ; 
Lady Montagu's account of Tiu-key is still one of the most 
complete ; and Dr. Moore's Italy is a picture of manners and 
morals of permanent interest, because of its contrast with the 
existent state of things. Indeed, that beautiful and imfortu- ■ 
nate but regenerated land has long been so congenial a theme 
for scholars, and so attractive a nucleus for sentiment, that 
around its moniunents and life the gifted aud eager souls of 
all nations, have delighted to throw the expression of their 
conscious personality, from morbid and melancholy Byron to 
intellectual and impassioned De Stael, from Hans Andersen, 
the humane and fanciful Dane, to Hawthorne, the intro- 
spective New Englander. What Italy has been and is to 
the imappropriated sentiment of authors, America has been 
and is to unorganized political aspirations : if the one country 
has given birth to unlimited poetical, the other has suggest- 
ed a vast amount of philosophical speculation. Brissot, Cob- 
bett, and De Tocqueville found ua the one country as genial 
a subject as Goethe, Rogers, and Lady Morgan in the other ; 
and while the latter offers a permanent background of art and 
antiquity, which forever identifies the scene, however the light 
and shade of the writer's experience may differ, so Nature, in 
her wild, vast, and beautiful jihases, offers in the former an in- 
spiring and inexhaustible charm, and free institutions an ever- 
suggestive theme, however variously considered. 

The increase of books of this kind can, perhaps, be real- 
ized in no more striking way than by comjjariiig the long 
catalogue of the present day with the materials available to 
the inquirer half a century ago. "When Winterbotham, in 
1795, undertook to prepare an " Historical, Geograj^hical, Com- 
mercial, and Philosophical View of the United States " * — to 
meet an acknowledged want in Europe, whei'e so many, con- 
templating emigration to America, anxiously sought for ac- 

* Four vols. 8vo., with a series of maps, plates, portraits, &c., London, 
1795. "A valuable record of the state of this continent at the end of the 
last century, selected fi-om all accessible sources," 



INTEODlJCTIOir. 6 

curate knowledge, and often for local and political details, and 
where there existed so much misconception and such vision- 
ary ideas in regard to this country — he cited the following 
writers as his chief resource for facts and principles of his- 
tory, government, social conditions, and statistics : the Abbe 
Raynal, Dr. Franklin, Robertson, Clavigero, Jefferson, Bel- 
knap, Adams, Catesby, Morse, Buffon, Gordon, Ramsay, Bar- 
tram, Cox, Rush, Mitchill, Cutler, Imlay, Filson, Barlow, 
Brissot, and Edwards. The authenticity of most of these 
writers made them, indeed, most desirable authorities ; but 
the reader who recalls their respective works ^yill readily per- 
ceive how limited was the scope of such, considered as illus- 
trating the entire country. Dr. Belknap wrote of New 
HamjDshire, Jefferson of Virginia, Bartram of Florida and a 
few other States ; Ramsay, Gordon, Adams, and Franklin fur- 
nished excellent political information ; but Morse's Geograjjhy 
was quite crude and limited, and Brissot's account of America 
was tinctured with his party views. We need not lose sight 
of the benefits which our early historical authors and natural- 
ists conferred, while we fully recognize the superior complete- 
ness and scientific insight of later and better-equipped authors. 
Dr. Belknap, it will ever be conceded, stands foremost as a 
primitive local historian, and benign is his memory as the 
indefatigable student of venerable records when the steeple 
of the Old South Church, in Boston, was his study; while, as 
the founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society, every 
explorer of New England annals owes him a debt of grati- 
tude : yet his description of the White Mountains is more 
valuable for its early date than for those scientific and pic- 
turesque details which give such interest to the botanical 
researches of conteniporary authors. The data furnished by 
Catesby and Bartram have still a charm and use for the 
savmnt who examines the flora and ichthyology of Florida 
and the Carolinas — ^notwithstanding the splendid work of 
Agassiz ; and there are temporary aspects of life at the South 
noted by Paulding, which give emphasis to the more thorough 
statistics of Olmsted. 



4 mTKODUCTION. 

To a philosophical reader, indeed, there are few more 
striking illustrations of character than the diverse trains of 
thought, sources of interest, and modes of viewing the same 
subject, which books of travel mcidentally reveal : froin 
Herodotus to Humboldt, the disposition and idiosyncrasies 
of the writers are as apparent as their comparative ability. 
There is, undoubtedly, great sameness in the numerous jour- 
nals, letters, and treatises of travellers on America ; only a few 
of them have any claim to originality, or seem animated by vital 
relations to the subject ; a specimen here and there represents 
an entire class ; -and to analyze the whole would be wearisome ; 
yet, in all that bear the impress of discrimination and moral sen- 
sibility, there is evident the individuality of taste and purpose 
that belongs to all genuine human work ; and in this point of 
view these writings boast no common variety : each author 
looks at his theme through the lens to Avhich his -vision is 
habituated ; and hence we have results as diverse as the 
mediimi and the motive of the respective writers. It accords 
with Talleyrand's political tastes that the sight of Alexander 
Hamilton — one of the wisest of the republican legislators — 
should have been the most memorable incident of his exile in 
America : equally accordant with Ampere's literary sentiment 
was it that he should find a Dutch gable as attractive as 
Broadway, because it revived the genial hiunor of Irving's 
facetious History : Wilson and Charles Bonaparte found the 
birds, French olficers the fair Quakers, English commercial 
travellers the manufactures and tariffs, English farmers the 
agriculture, Continental economists the prison and educational 
systems, Lyell the rocks and mines, Michaux the trees, sports- 
men the Western plains, and clerical visitors the sects and 
missions — the chief attraction ; and while one pilgrim be- 
stows his most heartfelt reflections upon the associations of 
Mount Vernon, another has no sympathy for any scenfe or 
subject but those connected with slavery : this one is amus- 
ing m humorous exaggeration of the Connecticut Blue Laws, 
and that one extravagant in his republican zeal ; tobacco and 
maple sugar, intemperance and prairie hunting, reptiles and 



mXKODUCTION. 5 

elections, the whale fishery and the Indians, manners and 
morals, occupy, in most unequal proportions, the attention of 
different writers ; an engineer praises the ingenuity and hardi- 
hood, while he deprecates the fragility of the " remarkable 
wooden bridges in America ; " an editor discourses of the in- 
fluence and abuse of the Press ; a horticulturist speculates on 
the prospects of the vine culture, and an economist on the 
destruction of the forests and the desultory system of farm- 
ing. Chambers, accustomed to cater for useful knowledge 
for the people, describes public establishments and schools ; 
while Kossuth's companion Pulskzy looks sharply at the 
" white, red, and black " races of the land, and speculates 
therefrom upon democracy and its results ; Lady Stuart 
Wortley enters into the sentiment of the scenery, and Miss 
Bremer into the details of domestic economy ; the Earl of 
Carlisle asks first for Allston's studio on landing, and, with the 
liberality of a scholar and a gentleman, elucidates the country 
he has partially but candidly observed, in a popular lecture ; 
while the Honorable Augustus Murray had too much rare 
sport in the West, and formed too happy a conjugal tie in 
America, not to have his recollections thereof, bright and 
kindly in the record. In a word, every degree of sympathy 
and antipathy, of refinement and vulgarity, of philosophi- 
cal insight and shallow impertinence is to be traced in these 
books of American travel — from coarse malice to dull good 
nature, and from genial sense to repulsive bigotry. And 
while the field may appear to have been well reaped as re- 
gards the discussion of manners, government, and industrial 
resources — recondite inquirers, especially the ethnologists, 
regard America as still ripe for the harvest. 

Years ago, Le Comte Carli * wrote to his cousin : " Je me 
propose de vous developper mes idees, ou, si vous le voulez, 

* " Lettres Americaines," 2 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1Y88. "In the first part, 
the author describes the manners and customs of the Americans before their 
country was discovered by Europeans. He also believes that traces of the 
rehgious rites of the Church of Rome were found among them, which resem- 
bled baptism and the communion of bread and wine." 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

mes songes, concemant les anciens peuples de I'Ameriq'ue que 
je crois descendus de ces antiques Atlantides si fameux dans 
I'histoire des premiers temps." And, within a few months, a 
London critical journal has mercilessly ridiculed the Abbe Em. 
Domenech, who published his " Seven Years' Residence in the 
Great American Deserts ; " in the introduction to which he 
remarks : " America is not solely an El Dorado for free- 
booters and fortune seekers ; though few persons have gone 
thither to gather the fruits of science." He refers to the 
origin of the Indian tribes and the various theories on the 
subject, and alludes to the undoubted fact that " numerous 
emigrations took place at very remote periods ; " and adds : 
" Africa has become known to us, but America has still a 
vast desert to which missionaries, merchants, and some 'rare 
scientific expeditions have alone penetrated. Its history, its 
geography, and its geology are still wrapped in swaddling 
clothes. America is now, comparatively speaking, a new 
country, a virgin land, which contains numerous secrets. 
The Government of the United States, to its praise be it, 
have, of late years, sent scientific expeditions mto the Amer- 
ican Deserts ; " and he notes the publications of Schoolcraft, 
Catlin, and the Smithsonian Institute. 

We have first the old voyageurs in the collection of 
De Bry and his English prototype Ogilby — the quaint, often 
meagre, but original and authentic records of the first explor- 
ers and navigators ; then, the diaries, travels, and memoirs of 
the early Jesuit missionaries ; next, the colonial pamphlets 
and reports, ofiicial, speculative, and incidental, including the 
series of controversial tracts and descriptions relating to New 
England and Virginia and other settlements ; the reports of 
the Quaker missionaries, the travels of French ofiicers who 
took part in the Revolutionary War, and the long catalogue 
of English books — from the colonial to the cockney era ; 
while the lives of the Spanish explorers, of the j^ioneers, the 
military adventurers, and the founders of colonies fill up and 
amplify the versatile chronicle. From Roger Williams's Key 
to the Indian Languages, to Sir Henry Clinton's annotations 



INTEODUCTION. 7 

of Grahame's History of the American War, from De Vries to 
De Tocqiieville, from Cotton Mather * to Mrs. Trollope, from 
Harmon's " Fi-ee Estate of Virginia," published in 1614, to 
Dr. Russell's fresh letters thence to the London Times / from 
Champlain's voyage to Dickens's Notes, from Zenger's Trial f to 
the last report of the Patent Office — the catalogue raisonnee 
of books of American travel, history, and criticism would 
include every phase of life, manners, creed, custom, develop- 
ment, and character, from the imperfect chart of imknown 
waters to the glowing photograph of manners in the analyt- 
ical nineteenth century. We find, in examining the library 
of American travels, that toleration is the charm that invests 
her to the heart yet bleeding from the wounds of relentless 
persecution ; and, in the elation of freedom, the page glows 
with eloquent gratitude even amid the plaints of exile. 
Mountains, rivers, cataracts, and caves make the child of 
romance pause and plead ; while gigantic fossil or exquisite 
coral reefs or a superb tree or rare flower win and warm the 
naturalist : one lingers in the Baltimore cathedral, another at 
the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, and a third in a Uni- 
tarian chapel at Boston, according to their respective views ; 
while " equality of condition," small taxes, cheap land, or 
plentiful labor secures the advocacy of the practical ; and 
solecisms in manners or language provoke the sarcasms of the 
fastidious. 

f We derive from each and all of these commentators on our 
coimtry, information, not otherwise obtainable, of the aspect 
of nature and the condition of the people, at diiferent eras and 
in various regions : we thus realize the process of national 

* Cotton Mather's " Magnalia Christi Americana ; or, the Ecclesiastical 
History of New England," 2 vols. 8vo., first American ed., Hartford, 1820. 

f " A Brief Narrative of the Case and Trial of John P. Zenger, Printer of 
the New York 'Weekly Journal,' for a Libel," 4to., pp. 53, New York, 1770. 
Governeiir Morris, instead of dating American liberty from the Stamp Act, 
traced it to the prosecution of Peter Zenger, a printer in the colony of New 
York, for an alleged libel : because that event revealed the philosophy of 
freedom, both of thought and speech, as an inborn human right, so nobly set 
forth in Milton's treatise on unlicensed printing. 



8 INTEODUCTION. 

development ; trace to their origin local peculiarities ; behold 
the present by the light of the past ; and, in a manner, iden- 
tify ourselves with those to whom familiarity had not blunted 
the impression of scenes native to ourselves, and social traits 
or political tendencies too near for us to view them in their 
true moral perspective. It may therefore prove both useful 
and interesting, suggestive and entertaining, to follow the 
steps and listen to the comments of these numerous travellers 
and critics, and so learn better to understand, more justly to 
appreciate and wisely love the land of our birth, doubly dear 
since fratricidal hands have desecrated her fame. 

After colonial enterprise, republican sympathy, economical 
zeal, the satirical, the adventurous, and the scientific had thus 
successively reported to Europe the condition and prospects, 
the errors and merits of our country, in the height of her 
material prosperity, broke out the long-matured Rebellion of 
the Slaveholders ; and while a vast and sanguinary civil war 
tested to the utmost, the moral and physical resoui'ces of the 
nation, it called forth a new, more earnest and significant 
criticism abroad. To analyze this would be to discuss the 
entire foreign bibliography of the war for the Union. We 
can but glance at its most striking features and important 
phenomena. 

The first lesson to be inferred from the most cursory sur- 
vey of what has been published in Europe on what is there 
called " the American Question," is the immense and intricate 
influence and relations which now iinite the New to the Old 
World. Commerce, emigration, political ideas, social inter- 
ests, literature, science, and religion have, one and all, con- 
tinued to weave strong mutual ties of dependence and re- 
ciprocity between Europe and America, to realize the extent 
and vital importance of whicli we have only to compare the 
issues of the European press for a single week with the sparse 
and obscure publications whereby the foreigner, a century 
ago, learned what was going on or likely to be achieved for 
humanity on the great western continent. This voluminous 
and impressive testimony as to the essential importance of 



INTKODTJCTION. i) 

Amierica to Europe, is qiute as manifest in the abuse as in the 
admiration, in the repulsion as the sympathy of foreign wri- 
ters, during the memorable conflict ; for selfish fear, interested 
motives, or base jealousy inspired their bitter comments far 
more than speculative indifference ; while those in a disinter- 
ested position, actuated solely by philosophical and hunyme 
impulses, elaborately pleaded the cause of our national life 
and integrity as involved in the essential welfare of the civil- 
ized world. Next to this universal acknowledgment of a 
mutual stake in the vast conflict, perhaps for us the most sin- 
gular revelation derived from the foreign discussion of our 
civil and military affairs has been that of the extraordmary 
ignorance of the country existing abroad. Apart from wilful 
political and perverse prejudice, this popular ignorance is 
doubtless the cause and the excuse for much of the patent 
injustice and animosity exhibited by the press toward the 
United States. The rebellious government organized a social 
mission to Europe, whereby they forestalled public oj^inion 
and artfully misrepresented facts : so that it has been a slow 
process to enlighten the leaders of oj^inion, and counteract 
the work of mercenaiy writers in France and England sub- 
sidized at the earliest stage of the war. 

But with all due allowance for want of knowledge and 
the assiduity of paid advocates of error, through all the pas- 
sion, prejudice, and mercenary hardihood which have given 
birth to so much falsehood, malice, and inhumanity in the 
foreign literary treatment of our national cause in this stupen- 
dous crisis and climax of social and civil life — we can yet dis- 
tinctly trace the influence and recognize the work of friend 
and foe in the recent avalanche of new commentators on 
America : their motives become daily more obvious, their 
legitimate claims more apparent, and their just influence bet- 
ter appreciated. History has in store for the most eminent 
an estimate which will coxmteract any undue importance 
attached to their dicta by the acute sensibilities of the passing 
time, so " big with fate." In an intellectual point of view, 
the course of English writers is already defined and explained 
1* 



10 INTKODtJCTION. 

to popular intelligence : the greater part of their insane ill 
will and perverse misrepresentation being accredited to polit- 
ical jealousy and prejudice, and therefore of no moral value ; 
while tiie evidence of bribery and corruption robs another 
large amount of vitujieration and false statement of all 
rational significance ; while the more prominent and powerful 
expositors, as far as position, capacity, and integrity are con- 
cerned, ai"e, to say the least, not so unequally divided as to 
cause any fear that truth and justice lack able and illustrious 
defenders : in the political arena, Roebuck's vulgar anathemas 
were more than counterbalanced by the sound and honest 
reasoning of Cobden and the logical eloquence of Bright ; 
while we could afford to bear the superficial sneers of Carlyle, 
more of an artist than a philosopher in letters, and the im- 
worthy raisrepi'esentations of Lord Brougham, senilely aris- 
tocratic and unspnpathetic, while the vigorous tliinker and 
humanely scientific reformer John Stuart Mill so clearly, 
consistently, and effectively pleaded the claims of our free 
nationality. And in France, how vain in the retrospect seem 
the venal lucubrations of pamphleteers and newspaper con- 
tributors arrayed against the Government and people of the 
United States when fightino^ for national existence and against 
the perpetuity and canonization of the greatest of human 
wrongs — when, in the lecture room of the College of France, 
the gifted and erudite Edouard Laboulaye expounds the grand 
and rightful basis of our Constitution, and in the salojis of 
the same metropolis scatters his witrkindled pages in vindica- 
tion of our social privileges and civic growth ; and, at the 
French Academy, Montalembert thus opens his discourse : 

" Gentlemen, eighty vears have elapsgd since M. Montjon con- 
fided to the Frencli Academy the mission of crowning not only lite- 
rary works useful to morals, but virtuous deeds. It was in the year 
1782 ; at the moment when the peace of America commenced to 
recompense the glorious cooperation which France had lent to the 
emancipation of the United States and to the birth of a great free peo- 
ple, wJiose greatness and icliosclilerty shall never perish, ifit])lease God, 
in the formidalle trials which it is passing through to-day. Louis XVI. 



mTEODUCTION. 11 

sho\\-ed himself still animated by the wisdom which had called Male- 
sherbes and Turgot to liis coimsels. The Queen Marie Antoinette had 
given birth to her firstborn ; Madame Elizabeth of France was in 
her eighteenth year, ilhmiinating Versailles with her virginal graces 
and her angelic piety — that Elizabeth whose bust you see before you, 
presented by M. Montyon himself, with the inscription ' To Virtue,' 
of which she seemed the most perfect and touching type. Liberty 
then seemed to rise up pure and fruitful in Europe as in America, and 
our ancient royalty to be steeped in a new fountain of youth, pop- 
ularity, and virtue. 

" How many miscalculations, ruins, and disasters, above all, how 
many crimes and humiliating failures, since these days of generous 
illusion, of legitimate enthusiasm and blind confidence ! How many 
cruel lessons inflicted upon the noblest aspirations of the human 
heart ! How many motives for not surrendering themselves to the 
most reasonable hopes except with a salutary humility, but however, 
without ever abdicating the indissoluble rights of human liberty or 
banishing to the land of chimeras the noble ambition* of governing 
men by honor and conscience ! " 

The new comments on America elicited by the war are 
threefold : first, political speeches ; second, newspaper com- 
mentaries ; and third, treatises deliberately written and pub- 
lished. Of the first, the greater part are unavoidably ephem- 
eral in their influence, and usually called forth by a special 
phase of the war in its international relations ; the second, 
especially as regards the leading journal in Great Britain and 
most famous in the world, have sunk to the lowest conceivable 
level as a medimn of authentic information and a mercenary 
agency ; in the third department alone has anything of a com- 
plete and permanent interest been introduced ; and there are 
pages of De Gasparin, Laboulaye, Mill, Cairnes, Newman, 
Cochin, and Martin, which deserve to be enshrined as literary 
illustrations of Christian liberalism and eloquent loyalty to 
truth and humanity in the defence and illustration of Ameri- 
can liberty, law, and life, in their magnanimous conflict with 
injustice, degradation, and cruel sacrilege. When Lafayette, 
nearly half a century ago, received at the hands of the nation 
in whose behalf he had fought in his youth, the greatest pop- 
ular ovation ever granted to a hero, he thus alluded to the 



12 INTKODUCTION. 

Union in one of his replies to the municipal welcomes that 
greeted his entrance into every city of the land : 

"A Union, so essential, not only tq the fate of each member of the 
confederacy, but also to the general fate of manTcincl, that the least 
breach of it would be hailed with barbarian joy by a universal war- 
whoop of European aristocracy and despotism." 

It was in reply to this base " war whoop " that the writers 
we have mentioned, so eloquently and seasonably advocated 
the cause and character of our nation. 

One of the most curious and interesting of the countless 
subjects which the history of our memorable conflict will 
yield to future philosophical investigation, will be its literaiy 
fruit and record — the bibliography of the war — and of this 
the foreign contributions will aflbrd some remarkable and 
brilliant specimens. If to ourselves, as a nation, the war for 
the Union has been a test of extraordinary scope and intensity 
— developing a military and scientific genius, a sanitary enter- 
prise, an extent of financial resources, a capacity for self-sacri- 
fice and self-reliance undreamed of in our prior experience ; if 
it has tested personal character and modified social estimates, 
and tried absolutely the comparative worth and latent force 
of our institutions and national sentiment, not less has it 
tested the political magnanimity, the press, the prejudices, the 
social philosophy, and humane instincts of Europe ; and if the 
crisis has evoked much ^that is mean and mortifying in the 
spirit of those old communities in their feelings toward our 
young republic in the bitter hour when the pangs of a second 
birth are rending her vitals, so also has it called forth memor- 
able, benign, noble words of cheer and challenge from volun- 
teer champions of America abroad, in the foremost ranks of 
her best and most honest thinkers, lovers of truth, and repre- 
sentatives of humanity. 



CHAPTER I. 

EARLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 

From the time when the existence of this continent was 
but conjectural to the European mind, and recognized as a 
fact of nature only in the brain of a poor Genoese mariner, 
it was looked to, thought of, imagined chiefly in its relation 
to the Old World, as the completion and resource of her civil- 
ization — a new opportunity, a fresh arena. Gold seekers, * 
indeed, were prompted to gaze hither by mere cupidity, and 
Columbus neai-ly lost his long-solicited aid from the Spanish 
sovereigns by insisting on hereditary privileges of rule and 
possession in case of success ; but the idea that Avarmed the 
generous purpose of Isabella was the conversion to Chris- 
tianity of the heathen tribes of America, and the extension 
of Catholic rule in the world. No candid thinker can look 
back upon the period of the discovery without tracing a 
wonderful combination of events and tendencies of humanity, 
whereof this land seems the foreordained and inevitable goal 
and consequence. It cannot appear to the least imaginative 
and philosophical mind as an accident, that the zeal for mari- 
time discovery should have awakened in Europe simultaneous- 
ly with the access of new social truth, the sudden progress of 

* " Les cliercheurs d'or ont comraencc', ni voulant qu'or, ricn de plus brisant 
Thomme, Colomb, le meilleur dc tous, dans son propre journal, montre cela avec 
une naivete terrible, qui d'avance, fait fremir de ce que feront ses successeurs." 

— MiCHELET. 



14 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

ideas, and the trivunpli of mechanical genius. With the 
fifteenth century the " civilization of the sanctuary " over- 
leaped its long exclusive boundaries, and, with the invention 
of printing, became a normal need and law of humanity ; 
feudalism waned ; the Reformation awoke and set free the 
instinct of faith and moral freedom ; and just at this crisis a 
new world was opened, a fresh sphere aflbrded. As the idea 
of " geographical unity " — the conviction that " the globe 
wanted one of its hemispheres " — was the inspiration of Colum- 
bus, so to the eye of the thoughtful observer, an equilibrium 
of the moral world — a balance to the human universe — was as 
obvious and imperative a necessity ; for the new ideas and the 
conflict of opinions and interests, and especially the new and 
absolute self-assertion, incident to the decay of error and the 
escape from traditional degradation, made it indispensable 
to the safety of the innovator, the freedom of the thinker, 
the scope of the dissenter and reformer, to find refuge and 
audience in a land wliosc destinies yet lay imdeveloped in the 
■udld freedom of nature, and where prowess of mind as well 
as of animal courage could work into " victorious clearness " 
the confused problems of an aspiring civilization, and lay the 
foundation of an eclectic, liberal, and free community of men 
— " a wider theatre and a new life." 

Accordingly, with the progress of time and the accumula- 
tion of historical details, with the profound analysis thereof 
that characterizes modern research — the decline of feudal and 
ecclesiastical sway in Europe, the Reformation, and the inven- 
tion of printing are seen to have an intimate relation to and 
aflSnity with the discovery of America, in the series of historical 
events which have resulted in the civilization of the nineteenth 
century. Nor is this original association of the New and Old 
World without a vague physical parallel ; for it has been a 
favorite scientific speculation that there was an ancient union 
or proximity of the two continents — suggested by the fact 
that the eastern shore of America advances where the opposite 
shore of Europe recedes. "Firstborn among the continents," 
says Agassiz, " though so much later in culture and civUiza- 



EAKLT DISCOVEKEES AND EXPL0REK8. 15 

tion than some of more recent birth, America, as far as her 
physical history is concerned, has been falsely denominated the 
New World." " America," says Hitter, " although it repeats 
the contrasts of the Old World, yet the course of its moimtain 
chains is not from east to west, but from north to south. Its 
sea coast best endowed with harbors and islands is on the 
eastern side, and so turned toward the civilization of the Old 
World. The Gulf Stream, which may be called the great com- 
mercial highway of nations, brought both of the continents 
bordering on the North Atlantic into direct connection. 
North America was, therefore, destined to be discovered 
by Europeans, and not by Asiatics. Asia could easily have 
transferred a part of its population to America, in consequence 
of the proximity of their shores at Behring's Straits. But the 
sea coast of North America is so richly furnished with har- 
bors and islands, that it readily attracted European civiliza- 
tion. The gentle slopes of the American continent offered a 
most favorable field to Europeans, allowing, as they did, civil- 
ization to penetrate without obstruction every portion of the 
land. Nature, too, has shown us, by giving to America river 
systems which run northward to the numerous groups of 
islands and peninsulas of the Polar Sea, that America was 
destined even more than Europe to send civilization to the 
northern portions of the globe." * 

The North American continent extends from the twenty- 
fourth ,to the forty-ninth degree of north latitude, and from 
the sixty-sixth to the one hundred and twenty- fourth degree 
of west longitude : its area is more than five sixths that of 
Europe, and more than ten times that of Great Britain and 
France united : there are seven thousand miles of eastern 
shore line, thirty-four hundred southern and twenty-two 
hundred western ; while the northern lake line is twenty-two 
hundred miles. Climate, soil, avocation, and productions are, 
by this afiluent space, adapted to the constitution, the charac- 
ter, and the necessity of each European nationality — so that 

* " Geographical Studies," by Professor Carl Ritter, of Berlin, translated 
by W. L. Gage. 



16 AMEBIC A AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. 

the German vinedresser, the Italian musician, the Spanish 
planter, the French modiste — Pole, Russian, Swede, Swiss, and 
Sicilian — the professor, merchant, man of science, agriculturist, 
tough rustic, delicate artiste, radical writer, proselyting priest, 
or cosmopolitan philosopher-^with any sagacity, self-respect, 
or urbanity, can readily find the physical conditions or the 
social facilities, the climate, business, and community, the 
scopes, position, and prosperity adapted to his temperament 
and faculty. The Spanish, French, and colonial history of 
America — the national epoch with its statistics of navigation, 
population, taxation, education, public lands, railways, manu- 
factures, patents, canals, telegraphs, legislation, municipal 
rule, emigration, jurisprudence, trade, and government — and, 
finally, the causes and significance of the present rebellion — 
are each and all elements of a vast historical development, 
wherein a Christian philosopher can easily trace a consecutive 
significance and Divine superintendence of humanity. 

Travellers of ordinary intelligence and observation are not 
un frequently lured into vague but rational conjectures as to 
the history of races by the resemblance so often apparent 
between tlie memorials of widely separated and most ancient 
people. An American familiar with the trophies of an EgyjD- 
tian museum, who has examined the contents of a Western 
mound, visited an Etruscan city, like Volterra, Druidical re- 
mains in Britain, or compared the porcelain idols of Burmah 
with those found in South and Central America, will be 
tempted to follow with credulity the ingenious speculations of 
antiquarian savans who argue from symbolic coincidences that 
an identical language and worship, in remote ages, linked in a 
common bond the world's inhabitants ; or that similar trophies 
of fiiith found in Odin stones and Hindu temples, in Etrurian 
sepulchres and Mississippi himuU, at least, suggest a more 
ancient emigration to America than is claimed by the advo- 
cates of Norse discoveries. It is but needful to read the his- 
tory of the serpent symbol and the recent controversies as to 
unity of races, to find in such ethnological sjieculations a re- 
markable basis of fact ; whether or not we admit the prob- 



EARLY DISCOVEEEES AND EXPLOEEES. 17 

ability so confidently ui'ged that a Chinese priest and a fifth- 
century Buddhist missionary visited this continent via the 
Pacific, and reported thereof, ages before Christopher Colum- 
bus dreamed of a new world. In fact, the early history and 
traditions relating to the discovery and casual settlements, is 
one of the most remarkable chapters in the annals of the 
world — afibrding, on the one hand, the greatest scope for 
imagination, and, on the other, the most suggestive mateinal 
for philosophical inference and elucidation. How early and 
in what manner the nearest points of contact between America 
and the rest of the world, in the far northwest, were first 
crossed at Behring's Straits, gives room for bold conjecture : 
ethnologists, archajologists, and antiquarians have broached 
numerous theories and established curious facts to prove that 
the " new world " of Columbus was loiown and partially 
colonized long before that intrepid navigator heard the 
thrilling cry of " land ! " from the mast head of t\\e, Pinta : 
not only those primitive explorers the Chinese and Jaj^anese, 
but the ancierrt Phoenicians, Norman colonists from Greenland, 
Irish saints, and Russian overland expeditions have been con- 
fidently traced and sometimes authenticated, Naturalists 
have, with subtile knowledge, pointed out how the secret of 
another continent was whispered by the voice of Nature, seeds 
borne on the currents of the air, and plants on those of the 
sea ; scholars have culled from old Latin and Italian poets 
intimations of the existence of a hemisphere unexplored ; and 
ingenious observers have appealed to stone hearths, like those 
of Denmark, found at Cape Cod, moss-grown clefts in aged 
trees, brass arrow heads, and copper axes, to evidence a long- 
lost colony. 

The Icelandic navigators are supposed to have made voy- 
ages to Yinland, on the southern coast of New England, five 
centuries before Columbus. The "Welsh, too, claim a share in 
this remote exploration of America. In the preface to his 
poem of " Madoc," Southey says of the hero, he " abandoned 
his barbarous coimtry, and sailed away to the Avest, in search 
of some better resting place. The land which he discovered 



18 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

pleased him ; he left there part of his people, and went back 
to Wales for a fresh supply of adventurers, with whom he 
again set sail, and was heard of no more. Strong evidence 
has been adduced that he reached America, and that his pos- 
terity exist there to this day." And a venerable scholar, of 
our own country, observes that 

"Madoc is stated to have been a son of Owen Gwynedd, Prince, 
or, as he is often styled, King of Wales. His father's death is assigned 
to the year 1169, and the commencement of his own voyage to the 
succeedhig year. I quote an authority which lias apparently been 
overlooked, in citing Warrington's Ilistory of AVales. He writes : 
' About this time [1170] Madoc, seeing the contention whicli agitated 
the fiery spirit of his brothers, with a courage equal to theirs, but far 
more liberally directed, gave himself up to the danger and uncertainty 
of seas hitherto unexplored. He is said to have embarked with a few 
ships ; sailing west, and leaving Ireland to the north, he traversed 
the ocean till he arrived by accident upon the coast of America. 
Pleased with its appearance, he left there a great part of his people, 
and returning for a fresh supply, he was joined by many adventurers, 
both men and women ; who, encouraged by a flattering description 
of that country, and sick of the disorders which reigned in their own, 
were desirous of seeking an asylum in the wilds of America.' 

" Some, indeed, have regarded the whole subject as unworthy of 
investigation. But when we perceive it asserted, that individuals 
have seen in the possession of Indians, as we call them, books or rolls 
written on parchment, and carefully wrapped up, though they could 
not be read ; and the people who possessed them, tliough but a frag- 
ment of our Indian population, showing a fairer skin than the ordi- 
nary tribes, and hair and beard, occasionally, of reddish color — we 
must think the subject wortli some further inquiry ; and I cannot 
but express the hope that the inquiry may be pursued." * 

Carl Christian Rafn, a Danish archaeologist, in his work on 
American antiquities, published at Copenhagen in 1837, en- 
deavors to prove that America was not only discovered by 
the Scandinavians in the tenth, but that during the fom- suc- 
ceeding centuries they made frequent voyages thither, and 

* " Address before the American Antiquarian Society, at their Annual 
Meeting, October, 1863," by Rev. William Jenks, D.D. 



EAKLY DISCOVEEEES AND EXPLOEEES. 19 

had settlements in what is now Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island. 

Availing himself of these researches, our eminent country- 
man Henry Wheatou enriched his " Histoiy of the North- 
men " — a work, like the author's Treatise on International Law, 
of European reputation — the fruit of studies carried on in the 
midst of important and admirably fulfilled diplomatic duties. 

Alexander von Humboldt, on his way from Mexico via 
Cuba, arrived at Philadelphia in 1804, and was cordially re- 
ceived at Washington by Jefferson ; his sojourn in the United 
States, however, was quite brief: of his views in regard to 
the ancient memorials found in the American continents the 
historian Prescott observes : " Humboldt is a true philoso- 
pher, divested of local and national prejudices ; like most 
truly learned men, he is cautious and modest in his deductions, 
and though he assembles very many remarkable coincidences 
between the Old World and the New, in their institutions, 
notions, habits, etc., yet he does not infer that the New 
• World was peopled from the Old, much less from one par- 
ticular nation, as most rash speculators have done." * 

From the vague but romantic conjecture of the Egyptian 
legend w^hich Plato repeated in regard to the island of At- 
lantis, to the dim traditions which place the wonderful Vinland 
of the Scandinavian navigators on the shores of Labrador ; 
from the mysterious charm that invested the newly discovered 
isles of the tropics and found immortal expression in Shak- 
speare's Tempest, to the curious ethnological speculations which 
recognize in the ancient mounds of tlie Mississippi valley rel- 
ics of a civilization anterior to the American Indians ; from 
the fabulous lures, like the fountain of youth, that attracted 
Southern Europeans to Florida, to the stern crises of opinion 
which drove English Puritans to the bleak coast of New Eng- 
land — the earliest descriptions of and associations with the 
coxmtry, now" known as the United States of America, are deep- 
ly tinctured with visionary legends and traditional fables ; to 

* Ticknor's "Life of Prescott," p. 165. 



20 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

extricate which from the substratum of truth and fact, is a 
hopeless attempt. Nor, despite the exploded theories which 
found in certain rocks and structures evidences of the North- 
men's sojourn, and the symbolical science which seems par- 
tially to unite the trophies of ancient sepulchres with the East- 
ern races — are we averse to leave mianalyzed the vast and 
mysterious region of inquiry outside of authentic history ; let 
it remain in vague extent and dreamy suggestiveness — the 
domain of limitless possibilities to the philosopher, and of ro- 
mantic suggestiveness to the poet. 

Even the imaginative chann that belongs to this myth- 
ical era, yields to one scarcely less attractive, when the Amer- 
ican traveller remembers, at St. Malo, that the intrepid Car- 
tier thence sailed to discover the St. Lawrence, or inspects with 
a deeper feeling than curiosity the letters of Verrazzano, still 
preserved in the library at Florence, wherein he describes the 
coast of Carolina and the harbors of New York and Newport 
in all their virgin solitude ; and recalls at Bristol the primitive 
expeditions of the Cabots. 

It is sufficient, indeed, for the inquirer who aims to dis- 
cern and illustrate the actual resources, development, and pros- 
pects of the country, to begin with the first authentic descrip- 
tions of the mainland by the old navigators who, in tliat era 
of maritime enterprise, visited so many points of the coast 
toward the close of the fifteenth and the early part of the 
sixteenth century. 

When Ave consider what geography was in the hands of 
Strabo and Pliny, and what the literature of travel was when 
Columbus discovered the West Indies,* Cabot Labrador, and 

* San Domingo lias been well named " the vestibule of American discovery 
and colonization ;" that island having long been the headquarters and rendez- 
vous of Columbus, and the scene of his first success and subsequent misfor- 
tunes : it was thither that the animals and plants originally introduced to this 
country from Eurojie were brought ; there was the first white colony established 
on this side of the Atlantic ; and there, at present, seems to be the most flour- 
ishing and promising free negro population. A full and interesting account of 
this island, whose future is fraught with interest, was recently read before the 
N. Y. Geographical Society, and is pubUshed by G. P. Putnam, of New York. 



EAKLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 21 

Vespucci gave a name to this continent — instead of wonder- 
ing at the meagre details and extravagant generalities of those 
primitive accounts of the New World, we should rather congrat- 
ulate ourselves on the amount and kind of authentic material 
which Navai'ette collected and arranged and Irving gracefully- 
elaborated in his Life of the Discoverer of America. It is 
quite an abruj^t transition from the glowing fables that im- 
mediately precede the first chapter of our regular history, to 
l^erceive and admit the fact that " shoals of cod " really estab- 
lished the earliest practical mutual interest between Europe 
and America ; and that the Isfewfoundland fisheries formed the 
original nucleus whereby originated the extraordinary emi- 
gration which, from that day to the present, has continued to 
people this hemisphere with the representatives of every race, 
country, and lineage of Europe. The old navigators were the 
pioneers — Spanish and Portuguese; in 1512, Ponce de Leon 
commenced his romantic quest in the Bahamas ; eight years 
later, Magellan finished the demonstration Columbus began, 
by circumnavigating the globe ; in 1524, the Florentine mar- 
iner Verrazzano anchored in the bay of New York ; in 1528, 
Narvaez was in Florida; in 1539, De Soto discovered the 
Mississippi ; in 1540, France commenced the colonization of 
the country aroimd tlie St. Lawrence, and in 1606 was 
granted the first charter of Virginia; in 1610, the Dutch 
began to trade with the aborigines of the Hudson ; and in 
1620, the "Mayflower" arrived at Plymouth. 

For a long period, when the fisheries of Newfoundland 
were the only attraction and the chief promise to European 
adventure, the whole country was spoken of and written 
about by a French appellative signifying codfish ; and during 
another era, Florida, the name given to their southern settle- 
ment by the Spaniards, was applied to the whole extent of the 
coast ; while Virginia, whereby the Jamestown colony was 
called from the Virgin Queen, whose favorite Raleigh was 
patentee thereof, designated an indefinite extent of country, 
and on the old maps and in the current parlance stood for 
America to Englishmen : a German writer laments that one 



22 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

of those names was not retained as national — instead of being 
confined to a single State ; arguing their better adaptation to 
indicate a flourishing and a virgin land than the vague terms 
America and the United States. One reason why a citizen of 
the latter is so often startled at the ignorance of rustics and 
pro^dncials on the Continent, in confounding North and South 
America, is that the^Droducts of the latter, some of which are 
in prevalent use in Euro2)e, are known merely as American 
productions. 

The decadence of Spain and the growth of England are 
intimately associated with the settlement of America. The 
introduction from the latter comitry into Europe of the 
potato, maize, and tobacco, has exerted an influence and pro- 
duced results far transcending the more obvious economical 
consequences. Upon maritime enterprise and interests, in- 
cluding both legal and scientific progress, the discovery and 
settlement of the New World produced efiects incalculable. 
While the priests and the far traders who explored Canada 
achieved little beyond the local and often temporary establish- 
ment of depots, forts, and cliapels, and left in the memory 
of Champlain a foreign tradition rather than a fresh national 
development, the colonization of the Atlantic slope embodied 
and conserved a new political development, and identified the 
country with progressive industry, religious toleration, free 
citizenship, educational privileges, and an economical rule. 
Newfoundland became a school for English seamen ; New 
Belgium preserved and propagated the social enfranchise- 
ment and mstinct of liberty wrested in the Netherlands from 
the cruel despotism of Spain ; French Protestants found scope 
and safety in the Carolinas, and English Puritans a bleak but 
vital realm in New England. 

Those formidable-looking folios in old Latin type, and 
with the imprint of Venice or Amsterdam, dear to anti- 
quarians, wherein the old navigators, through some medieval 
scholar's pen, registered for the future bibliopole and histo- 
rian the journal of their American voyages, constitute the first 
records of travel there, although mainly devoted to descrip- 



EAELT DISCOVEEEKS AND EXPLORERS. 23 

tions of the coast and adjacent waters. These now rare tomes 
are curious from their quaint antiquity — the combination of 
fact and fiction, statements which are confirmed to-day by the 
measurement of bays and the aspect of nature, and fabulous 
exaggerations obviously born of honest credulity or super- 
stitious faith — and according, in their obsolete wonderment, 
with the primitive style and appearance of the venerable 
books. Very curious also are the illustrations which repre 
sent, in stiff and artificial designs, the fields of maize and 
tobacco and the Indian games and ceremonials which form 
the marvellous but monotonous features of those first 
glimpses which the Old World obtained of the New. De Bry's 
Collection of Voyages and Travels to America, comprised in 
parts, and printed in folio at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1590, 
is the most copious repertory of these ancient records. Flor- 
ida and Virginia are described as " gardens of the desert," 
and the heroes of romance cluster around the narrative of 
their partially explored resources, new products, and myste- 
rious natives. 

Most venerable of all, however, is the " Laiago Mundi " of 
Petrus de Alyaco that inspired Columbus, of which Irving 
says : 

" Being at Seville, and malving researches in the Bibliotheca Cohim- 
bina, the library given by Fernando Columbus to the cathedral of 
the city, I came accidentally upon the above-mentioned copy of the 
work of Peter Aliaco. It is an old volume in folio, bound in parch- 
ment, published soon after the invention of printing, containing a 
collection in Latin of astronomical and cosmographical tracts of Pedro 
de Aliaco and of his disciple John Gerson. Aliaco was the author of 
many works, and one of the most learned and ingenious men of his 
day. Las Casas is of opinion that his writings had more effect in 
stimulating Columbus to the enterprise than those of any other author. 
His work was so familiar to Columbus that he had tilled its whole 
margin with Latin notes, in his handwriting, citing many things 
which he had read and gathered elsewhere. ' This book, which was 
very old,' continues Las Casas, ' I had many times in my hands, and 
I drew some things from it, written in Latin, by the said Admiral 
Christopher Columbus, to verify certain points appertaining to his 
history, of which I before was in doubt.' " 



24r AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

Then, among others, there is a " General Description of 
America," by P. d'Avity (Paris, 1631) ; " News from Amer- 
ica " (Rouen, 1678) ; " De Vries's Voyage ; " the famous "Re- 
lation of Virginia" (1615), and many other local treatises and 
more or less authentic accoimts written to beguile adventur- 
ers, celebrate discoveries, or ventilate controversy respecting 
the boundless land of promise to military and religious, polit- 
ical and rapacious adventure. Many, and characteristic, too, 
were these early memorials of New England colonization, 
tinged ^ith the religious element so largely developed in her 
primitive annals ; as, for instance, " New England Judged by 
the Spirit of the Lord" (1661) ; "111 News from New En^ 
land, by John Clarke, of Rhode Island ; " " The New-England 
Canaan" (Amsterdam, 1632), The Spanish Voyageurs ; the 
memorials of Raleigh, De Soto, La Salle — of John Smith, 
Ponce de Leon, Oglethorpe, Wintlirop, Roger Williams, 
Hendrik Hudson — and, m short, of the pioneers in conquest, 
colonization, and civilization, whether religious, agricultural, 
or administrati'v'e, furnish a mine of description, more or less 
curious, whereby the original asj^ect, indigenous products, and 
theoretical estimates of America may be learned in part, and 
inferred from or compared with later and more complete 
explorations and reports. A vast number of works devoted 
to this country appeared dui-ing the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries ; and they attest the historical development incident 
to the discovery of America and the reaction of colonization 
there upon European civilization ; but the legitimate literature 
of travel, as we understand it, in the New World, was initiated 
by the French missionaries. 

Li the venerable records of maritune discovery and ex- 
ploration, the fabulous and the authentic are curiously blended. 
One of the earliest collectors of these quaint and valuable data 
was Richard Hakluyt, an English prebendary, born in London 
in 1553. His love of nautical science and passion for geo- 
graphical research made the acquisition of an original journal 
of one of those adventurous mariners who first visited any 
part of this continent or other half-explored region of the 



EAKLY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 25 

earth a precious experience. HaMuyt was educated at West- 
minster school and Oxford; he corresponded with the, most 
famous living geographers of his day — such as Ortelius and 
Mercator. A residence of five years in Paris as chaplain to 
the British embassy, gave him excellent opportunities for the 
prosecution of his favorite studies on the Continent ; and 
these were enlarged on his retm-n to England, when Sir Wal- 
ter Raleigh appointed him one of the counsellors, assistants, 
and adventurers to whom he assigned his patent for the pros- 
ecution of discoveries in America. To him we owe the pres- 
ervation of numerous original accounts of Enghsh maritime 
enterjDrise. HaUam remarks that the best map of the six- 
teenth century is to be found in a few copies of the first edition 
of Hakluyt's Voyages. John Locke says of the work that it 
is " valuable for the good there to be picked out." He was 
encouraged in his labors by Walsingham and Sidney. Few 
documentary annalists have rendered better service to our 
primitive history than Hakluyt ; his publications made known 
the discoveries of his coimtrymen, and, by disseminating the 
facts in regard to America, encouraged colonization. He 
translated from the French, in 1587, "Foure Voyages unto 
Florida by Captain Londonniere," and an improved edition of 
Peter Martyr's work, " De Novo Orbe ; " but his most cele- 
brated work is " The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traf- 
fiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by sea or 
over land, within the compass of 1,500 years." The first edi- 
tion is extremely rare ; but an enlarged one appeared in 
1598, the third part of which contains a history of expedi- 
tions to North America and the West Indies. His papers, at 
his decease, became the property of Rev. Samuel Purchas, 
who, in 1613, published that curious work, "Purchas, his 
Pilgrim," two volumes of which form a continuation of Hak- 
luyt's Voyages. From these sources may be gleaned some 
of the earliest authentic descriptions of America. In regard 
to the indigenous products, th^ geography, and some details 
of aboriginal character and customs, we recognize the honest 
intention of the brave pioneer navigators; but their credu- 
3 



26 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

lity and often their lively imagination are equally apparent, and 
the style and comments of Purchas sometimes add to the 
incongruous result. An eminent writer has justly defined 
these collections of Hakluyt and Purchas as " very curious 
monuments of the nature of hiunan enterprises, human testi- 
mony, and of human affairs. Much more is, indeed, offered to 
a refined and philosophic observer, though buried amid the 
unwieldy and unsightly mass, than was ever supposed by its 
original readers or by its first comj^Uers." * 

A very curious relic of these primitive annals of discovery 
has been renewed to modern readers by Conway Robinson, 
who so ably prepared for the Vii'ginia Historical Society an 
"Account of Voyages along the Atlantic Coast of North 
America, 1520-1573 ;" and a not less curious antiquarian 
memorial of old times, in that State, was printed for the Hak- 
luyt Society, " The Historic of Ti'availe in Virginia Brit- 
tanica." Of late years every authentic document emanating 
from or relating to Columbus, Vespucius, Cabot, Drake, Hud- 
son, La Haye, Champlain, and other discoverers and explor- 
ers, has been, by the judicious liberality of historical and anti- 
quarian societies, or by private enterprise, reproduced, col- 
lated, and sometimes printed in fac-siraile, so that the means 
of tracing the original ideas and exjierience of the old navi- 
gators have been made accessible to studious comparison and 
inquiry ; and, in addition to such facilities, the jealousy of 
European Governments in regard to their archives has, with 
the growth of intelligence and the love of science, become 
essentially modified, so that charts, journals, commissions, 
original data of aU kinds, relating to early explorations, have 
been and are freely and sagaciously consulted by geographical 
and historical scholars.f 

* " Lectures on Modem History," by Prof. Smythe. 

\ Among other important collections — besides those of De Bry, Hakluyt, 
Purchas, and De Vries — may be mentioned that by Murray (Lond. 1839), 
and Ternaux-Compan's "Voyages, Relations et Memoirs Originaux pour 
servir a histoire de la decouverte de I'Amerique," in ten vols. ; and " Ameri- 
ca, being the latest and most accurate description of the New World, &c., 



EAKLY DISCOYEREKS AND EXPLOEEES. 27 

There is an absence of details in most of these early 
chronicles, which indicates but a superficial and limited explo- 
ration, such as the dangers and difficulties adequately explain. 
Yet sufficient is recorded to affiard materials for the his- 
torian and the naturalist, who aim at fixing the time and 
indicating the original aspect of those portions of the conti- 
nent that were fii'st visited by Europeans, and have since be- 
come, through the early appreciation of their natural advan- 
tages, the centre of prosperous civilization. Thus, in Van 
der Dock's account of New Netherlands in 1659, he describes 
the rigors of winter on the coast, the numerous whales that 
frequented the then lonely waters where is now congregated 
the shipping of the world, and mentions the fact that two of 
these leviathans in 164Y grounded forty miles up the river, 
and infected the air for miles with the effluvia of their de- 
composition. The abundance and superior quality of the oys- 
ters, the wild strawberries, the maize, grapes, hazelnuts, 
sheephead and stm-geons, are noted with the appreciative em- 
phasis of a Dutch epicure ; and that is a memorable picture 
to the visitor at Albany to-day, Avhich presents to his mind's 
eye Hendrik Hudson receiving tobacco, beans, and otter and 
beaver skins from the natives, environed by a dense forest. 

Of the primitive reports of colonial explorers and settlers, 
none has so vivid a personal interest as that of Captain 
John Smith : the romantic story of Pocahontas alone embalms 
his name. Sent out by the London Company in 1606, his party 
landed at Jamestown on the 13th of May of that year; he 
returned to England in 1609, and five years afterward ex- 
plored the coast of America from the Penobscot to Cape Cod. 
In 1615, having commenced another voyage, he was made 
prisoner by the French, and did not succeed, on regaining his 
liberty, in securing occupation again in American exploration, 
although he sought it with earnestness. Captain Smith died in 
London in 1631. His " True Travels, Adventures, and Obser- 
vations" was published in 1629. His map, tract on Virgmia, 

collected from the most authentic authors, and adorned with maps and sculp- 
ture, by John Ogilby," folio, London, 1675. 



28 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

and " Description of New England," attest his claims to a better 
recompense than he received : " In neither of these two coun- 
tries," he Avrites, " have I one foot of land, nor the very house 
I builded, nor the ground I digged witli my own hands, nor 
any content or satisfiiction at all." The original editions of 
Smith's several works relatuig to America are very rare : 
some of tliem have been reprinted in historical collections. 
nis most extensive work is " The General History of Vir- 
ginia, Now England, and the Summer Isles," prepared at the 
request of the London Company, and illustrated with portraits 
and maps. The period described is from 1584 to 162G. 
These writings are curious rather than satisfoctory ; valuable 
as records of pioneer experience and memorials of the early 
settlements : they were written to inform, and in their day 
were of great practical value ; but, except for aboriginal 
details and geographical facts, their authority and interest 
have long been superseded. Yet no American can look upon 
the old church of St. Sepulchre in London, where Captain 
John Smith was buried, without recalling that intrepid charac- 
ter, and associating it with the early fortunes of his native 
land. It is characteristic of this remarkable man that his 
favorite authors, when a youth, were Macohiavelli's "Art of 
War," and the Maxims of Antoninus — two books, says the last 
•nd best translator of the latter, admirably fitted to form the 
character of a soldier and a man.* He describes the animals, 
vegetables, soil, and rivers with quaint and brief eulogium 
— declaring Virginia " the poor man's best countrie in the 
world." f 

Among these primitive travels is a small quarto in anti- 
quated type, entitled " America Painted to the Life, by Fer- 

* George Long. 

f " The Generall Historic of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, 
with the names of the Adventurers, Planters, and Govemours, from tlicir first 
beginning, anno 1584, to this present 1620. With the proceedings of those 
severall Colonies and the accidents that befell them in all their journeys and 
discoveries. Also the Maps and descriptions of all those countrycs, their com- 
modities, people, government, customes, and religion yet knowne. Divided 
into sixe bookes." Folio, pp. H8, engraved title and one map, London, 1632. 



EAELY DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS. 29 

nando Gorges, Esq.," publislietl in London in 1649.* The 
author says, " all that part of the continent of New England 
which was allotted by patent to my grandfather, Sir Ferdi- 
nand Gorges and his heires, he thought lit to call by the nanie 
of the province of Maine," which, we are told, then extended 
from the Penobscot to the Hudson ; and was rented for two 
shillings per aniuim the hundred acres. Sir Fernando ex- 
pended twenty thousand pounds in his American enterprises. 
The Avork by his grandson, descriptive thereof, contains the 
usual details as to products, politics, sects, and Indians : an 
allusion to a feast of the latter would seem to indicate an early 
origin for the famous pudding called huckleberry. The occa- 
sion was a council, to which the Boston magistrates were 
invited. " The Indian king, hearing of their coming, gath 
ered together his counsellors and a great number of his sub- 
jects to give them entertainment ; " — the materials of which 
are described thus : " boiled chestnuts in their white bread, 
which is very sweet, as if they were mixed Avith sugar — and, 
because they would be extraordinary in the feasting, they 
strove for variety after the English manner, boyling puddings 
made of beaten come, putting therein great store of black ber- 
ries somewhat like currants." A quaint and compendious 
account is given of the first settlement of Springfield, in Mas- 
sachusetts — the few fiacts related giving a vivid idea of the 
economical and social condition of that now flourishing tOAATi, 
in 1645. "About this time, one ]\[r. Pinchin, sometime a 
magistrate, having, by desire to better his estate, settled him- 

* " At the same time, Sir Ferdinand Gorges was gathering information of the 
native Americans, whom he had received at Weymouth, and whose descrip- 
tions of tlie country, joined to the favorable views which he had ah-eady im- 
bibed, filled him with the strongest desire of becoming a proprietary of domains 
beyond the Atlantic." — Banchoft's History of the United States, vol. i. 

When, in 1643, the commissioners from Pljnnouth, New Ilavcn, Pay 
brook, &c., assembled at Boston, "being all desirous of union and studious of 
peace," none of " Sir Ferdinand Gorges, his province beyond Piscataqua, 
were received nor called into the confederation, because they ran a difl'erent 
course from us, both in their n,hiistry and civil government." — Wikthrop's 
Journal. 



30 AilEKICA AND IIEK COMMENTATOKS. 

self very remote from all the churches of Christ in the Massa- 
chusetts Government, upon the river of Conectico, yet under 
their government, he liaving some godly persons resorting 
unto him, they erected a to\\Ti and church of Christ, calling it 
Springfield ; it lying on this large navigable river, hath the 
benefit of transporting their goods by water, and also fitly 
seated for a bever trade with the Indians, till the merchants 
increased so many, that it became little worth by reason of 
their out buying one another, wliich caused them to live upon 
husbandry. This town is mostly built along the river side 
and upon some little rivulets of the same. There hath of late 
been more than one or two in tliis town greatly suspected of 
witchery." Here we have the pious and shrewd motives of 
the early settlers, the initiation of free trade and their primi- 
tive politic:U economy, and superstition quaintly hinted. How 
curious to compare the picture of that little toMU and church 
so " very remote " from others in the colony, the " bever 
trade with the Indians," and the destructive rivalry therein — 
the lonely river in the midst of the Avilderncss, and tlie godly 
pioneer who came there " to better his estate," and the " sus- 
picions of witchery " — with the populous, bustling scene of 
railway travel, manufactures, horse fairs, churches, scliools, 
trade, and rural prosperity, now daily familiar to hundreds 
of travellers. 

It is remarkable how some of these obsolete records link 
themselves Avith the interests and the questions of the passing 
liour. What more appropriate commentary, for instance, 
upon the provincial egotism of Virginia, can be imagined 
than the statement of Childs, a man of authority in his day, 
in England, that M'hile some cavaliers found refuge there, 
many of the colonists were outcasts, and their emigration the 
alternative for imprisonment or penal exile ? 

One of the most suggestive and authentic records whence 
we derive a true idea of the social tendencies and the natural 
phenomena amid which the American character was bred in 
the Eastera States is the journal of John Winthrop. Its very 
monotony reflects the severe routine of life then and there ; 



EAKLY DISCOVEEKKS AND EXFLORERS. 31 

religion enters into and modifies domestic retirement and 
individual impulse; the rigors of imsubdued natm-e in a 
northern climate are painfully manifest : we learn how isola- 
tion, strict oversight, and ecclesiastical rule, the necessity of 
labor and the alternations of extreme temperature disciplined 
and dwarfed, purified and hardened, elevated and narrowed 
the associations and instincts of humanity. What a vivid 
glimpse of life two hundred years ago in New England do 
the brief notes of the first Governor of Massachusetts aftbrd 
us, and how easy thence to deduce the characteristics and the 
history of those remarkable communities, explain their pecu- 
liarities, and justify their tenacious traits ! Take a few ran- 
dom extracts by way of illustration : 
JVop. 15, 1037.— A day of thanksgiving for tho -Clctory obtained over 

the Pequods. 
Mar. 7, 1638.— Mrs. Hutchenson, being removed to the Isle of Aquid- 
nev, was delivered of a monstrous birth : Mr. Cotton hereupon 
gathered it might signify hc-r error in denying inherent righteous- 
ness. 
A woman was judged to be whipped for reproaching the magistrates. 
Mar. 1, 1638. — A printing house was begun at Cambridge by one 
Dave. 

charged with taking above sixpence in the shilling profit. 

Mar. 10, 1639.— At the General Court an order was made to abolish 

that vain custom of drinking one to another. 
In this winter, in a close calm day, there fell down diverse flakes of 

snow of this form * , very thin, and exactly pointed as art would 

have cut them in paper. 
Sep. 20, 1630. — The wolves killed six calves at Salem. 
May 13, 1632. — The French came in a pinnace to Penobscott and 

rifled a trucking house belonging to Plimouth, carrying away 

three hundred weight of beaver. 
A^or. 5. — The congregation at Watertown discharged elder for 

intemperance in speecli. 
Jan. 17. — A servant of Mr. Skelton lost her way, and was several 

days in the woods, and half frozen. 
Jtcne 1, 1633.— A Scotchman by prayer and fasting dispossessed one 

possessed of the devil. 

Droughts, freshets, meteors, intense cold and heat, terrific 
storms, calm beautiful days, conflagrations, epidemics, Indian 



32 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

massacres, alternate in the record with constant church trials, 
reiJriraands and controversies, public Avhii)i)ings and memor- 
able sermons, occasional and long-desired arrivals from Eng- 
land, the establishment of a college and printing press, local 
emigrations and perilous adventure ; "wliercin bigotry and the 
highest fortitude, superstitions and acute logic, privation and 
cheerful toil, social despotism and individual rectitude indicate 
a rare and rigid school of life and national develoj)ment. 

Among the first colonial tributes of the muse descriptive 
of the New World was " New England's Prosjx'Ct," a true, 
living, and experimental description of that part of America 
commonly called New England, by William Wood. It Avas 
publislied in London in 1G35. The author lived four years in 
the region he pictures, and states in the preface to his metrical 
tract his intention to return there. He gives a rhymed ac- 
count of the colony's situation, and dilates upon the habits of 
the aborigines. The scene of the j»oeni is Boston and its vicin- 
ity, and the versified catalogue of indigenous trees is interest- 
ing, as probal)ly the first record of the kind. " Cheerful Wil- 
liam Wood " tells us, in delineating the country along the Mer- 
rimack, that 

" Trees both in Lills and i)lain3 in plenty be, 
The long-lived oak and monrnfnl cypris tree, 
Skr-toworing pine.s and chestnuts coateil rough, 
The lasting cedar, with the walnut tough : 
The rosin-dropping fir for masts in use ; 
The boatman seeks for oares light, neat-growne sprewse ; 
The brittle ashe, the ever trembling aspes, 
The broad-spread elm whose concave harbors wasps. 
The water-springie alder, good for nought," 

&c., <fcc. A more elaborate attempt at a primitive natural his- 
tory of the same region is " New England's Rarities Discov- 
ered," by John Josselyn, published in 1G72. The first explorer 
of the Alleghanies, John Lederer, wrote in Latin an account 
of " Three several Marches from Virginia to the West of Caro- 
lina and other parts of the Continent, begone in March, 1669, 
and ended in September, IGVO." Sir William Talbot made 
and published an English translation in 1672. The Westover 
Manuscripts, imblished by Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia, in 



EAKLY DISCOVEREKS AND EXPLORERS. 33 

1841, describe expeditions conducted by William Byrd, iu 
1728, wherein much curious information of Southern life, 
resources, and manners, at that period, is given. 

Governor Bradford, who succeeded Carver as chief magis- 
trate of the Plymouth Colony, left also a poetical description 
of New Englimd — which, though a fragment, is a singular 
literary relic of those days — the asjjcct of the coimtry and 
" spirit of the Pilgrims." But a better known and more 
copious as Avell as quaint memorial of colonial life in the old 
Bay State, and one which Hawthorne has evidently pondered 
to advantage, is to be fomid in the theories of Cotton Mather, 
illustrated as they are by the facts of his career and the inci- 
dental local and personal details of the " Magnalia : " although 
it appeared in London printed in folio in 1702, not imtil 1820 
was it republished in America. Odd, credulous, learned, 
speculative, narrow, and anecdotical, this and his other books 
reflect the times and country. 

There lived in Med ford, Mass., more than a century ago, 
a clerg}'man's daughter and wife, Jane Turrel, who wrote 
graceful and feeling verses, some of which have been pre- 
ser\'ed as early specimens of the New England muse. In one 
of her pieces, called " An lovitation to the Country," she 
enumerates the fruits and otlier delicafies with which she pro- 
poses to regale the expected guest ; and we learn therefrom 
that one indigenous product of the woods, now only found at 
a distance from the scene, was then a familiar luxury : 

The blushing peach and glossy ])lain there lies, 
And irith the mandral-e tempt your hands and eyes. 

A class of publications, which belong neither to the de- 
partment of travels nor memoirs, but which contain many im- 
portant and specific facts and comments in regard to the origi- 
nal aspect, resources, and character of the country, while yet 
a colonial territory, remains to be noticed. These are the 
various publications descriptive, statistical, and controversial, 
which motives of interest and curiosity elicited from the 
early emigrants, agents, and official representatives of the 
2* 



34 AMERICA AND HER C0MMRNTAT0R8. 

diflferent colonies. They are chiefly in the form of tracts ; 
many of them crude and quaint in style, inadequate and desul- 
tory ; some obviously inspired by the hope of alluring emi- 
gration ; others suggested by a spirit of rivalry between the 
different settlements ; some are lionestly descriptive, others 
absurdly exaggerated ; the theological and political questions 
of the day, whether local or administrative, gave buth to 
countless writings ; most of them are curious, some valuable 
from their details and authenticity, and others as unique illus- 
trations of history and manners : passages might be gleaned 
from not a few of these ancient hrochiircs^ which would favor- 
ably compare with more elaborate works written by educated 
travellers in America. The greater part of these now rare 
and costly literary relics of our country at the dawn of and 
immediately subsequent to its civilization, refer to Virginia 
and New England ; next in number are those devoted to 
Florida: the tracts which discuss and describe the Carolinas, 
Maryland, ami Pennsylvania being comj)aratively few ; while 
those that refer to Canada are multifarious. These primitive 
records of colonization often yield invaluable hints to the 
philosopher and historian ; although a vast proportion of 
them have lost their significance, and are more attractive to 
the bibliopole and the antiquarian than the general reader. 
In the form of letters, ajipeals, protests, advertisements, pic- 
turesque or economical narratives, such incidental records not 
unfrequently conserve an incident, a law, a fact of nature or 
government, of natural, political, or social histoiy, that has a 
permanent interest. Buckminster early called attention to 
the importance of preserving every publication relating to 
America, however apparently trivial, as a resource for his- 
torians ; and societies and individuals have since emulated 
each other in the purchase and collection of these scattered 
data.* 

As early as 1547 there was printed an account of the 

* One of the most remarkable private collections is that of John Carter 
Brown, of Providence, R. I., whose library contains over five thousand publi- 
cations relating to America, all of a date anterior to 1800, bound, lettered, 
and classified in the most convenient manner. 



EARLY DISCOVERERS A^-D EXPLORERS. 35 

" Medical Substances discovered in America ; " and a nar- 
rative of the deeds and habits of the once formidable bucca- 
neers, who infested the coast (and the traditions regarding 
whom gave the elder Dana a subject whicli he treated with 
effective interest in an elaborate poem), was i)ublished in 
1685 : ten years later we tind a catalogue of American 
plants ; and the query of a native poet in enumerating the 
subjects of permanent curiosity as yet unsatisfied— " Did 
Israel's missing tribes fijid refuge here ? " — was partially an- 
swered in 1651, by a treatise on " Tlie Jews in America." 
Numerous publications relating to the fisheries indicate at 
how early a date that branch of native economy assumed 
important relations in the eyes of Europeans, while such 
titles of current tracts as " On the Scheme of Sending Bish- 
ops to America," and " The Present Disposition of English, 
Scots, and Irish to Emigrate " thither, suggest how early the 
national tendencies of the colonies were regarded as sig- 
nificant of future political results. In 1789, when their 
character and destiny had grown formidable and definite, 
more general speculations occupied British writers, and an 
essay of that year discusses the " Influence of the Discovery 
of America on the Happiness of Mankind." Indeed, we have 
but to glance over any catalogue of publications relating to 
this country to perceive that the theme has afforded a con- 
venient pretext, if not a special motive, to treat of almost 
every subject connected with political, religious, and social 
interests : printing, witchcraft, revivals, trade, currency, iiv 
oculation, meteors, unitarianism, and agriculture, alternate in 
the list with tracts on natural history, the fur trade, expedi- 
tions, and accounts of Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, French, 
and English settlements ; until tliese brief and special gave 
place to more comi)lex and generalized views, wherein Amer- 
ica" is "dissected by a divine," "compared with England," 
and made the subject of " summary views " and " surveys," 
" sketches," " random shots," " recollections," and criticism 
of all kinds and degrees of perspicacity and prejudice. It is 
seldom, even when such works had multiplied incalculably, 
that the authors write under a nam de plume ; but there are 



3G AMERICA AND II EE COMMENTATORS. 

exceptions, as the Lettres Anonymous of " Kuhio," " J. M. I?," 
" A Citizen of Edinburgh," " A Kugbean," " New Englander," 
" Southron," " Yauki-f/' " l^'nr Tnuk-r," ote. 

To no singk' iiitlividual will the sci-kcr for original me- 
morials of American civilization, nationality, and development 
rocogni/o higher obligations tlian to tlie venerable, assiduous, 
and disinti-rested Peter Force, of Wasliingt on, whose '" Nation- 
al Calendar and Annals of tlie United Sutes" (1820-30), and 
whose ''Tracts and Pai)ers, Ivelating to the Origin, Settle- 
ment, and Progress of the Colonics in North Anutica, from 
the Discovery of the Country to the Year 1776" (1830-40), 
are a mine of precious and peerless liistorical materials, as a 
glance at the contents of the eoUections and of those not yet 
])ublished will satisfy the reader. It is true that most of 
these tracts and documents refer to matters of government, 
polity, and puljlic events, and can be rarely classed under the 
literature of travel, yet many of them incidentally include 
its most desirable features, and some of them arc " descri])- 
tions," " relations," " narratives," and *' accounts," which, in 
their homely details and «juaint sincerity, bring out the life, 
the manners, and the physical aspect of Georgia and Massa- 
chusetts, Maryland and Carolina, Virginia and New England, 
in tlie earliest C(jlonial times, quite in the spirit of the old 
travellers. The enthusiasm and j»erseverance whereby was 
realized the great enterprise of collecting and presening for 
future generations these inestimable memori.als of the Past of 
America, are unprecedented in this country as an example of 
intelligent and self-devoted patriotism.* 

• Quite an elaborate ?kctch of the " Ilistory of Discovery in America, 
from Columbus to Franklin," has recently appeared in Germany, from the 
pen of that intelliijont and indefatipablc author of valuable books of travel, J. 
0. Kohl. The work is confessedly incomplete and somewhat desultory, but 
full of interesting facts and speculations. A translation, by Major R. R. Noel, 
was pulilished in London early in the present year. " American Archives : 
consisting of a collection of authentic record.«, state papers, debates, and let- 
ters and other notices of public affairs, the whole forming a Documentary His- 
tory cf the Origin and Progress of the North American Colonies ; of the 
causes and accomplishment of the American Revolution ; and of the consti- 
tution of govemmcni for the United States to the final ratification thereof." 



niAPTKJl II. 

Fi: ES ClI MISSIOXA li Y EXP L <> li A TIO X. 
HKJTJJKPIN, MEXARD, ALLOCEZ, MARqCETTE, CHARLEVOIX, MAREST. 

LoxG after the Crusades, a spirit of adventure ami a love 
of travel animated men whom relii^ous faith or ecclesiastical 
inlluenee dedicated to the priesthood. That vocation pre- 
sented the two extremes of contemplative and active life; 
and where the temperament and the enthusiasm or intelligent 
curiosity of the monk ma<le him impatient of routine or a 
limited sphere, it was easy to become a missionary, and thus 
combine religious ministrations with the experience of travel. 
Accordingly, some of the earliest rei)orts of the physical re- 
Bources of the New World were made to the Old, by Catho- 
lic missionaries ostensi})ly braving its unexplored domain to 
win the aboriginal inhal»itants to Christianity, but now often 
remembered chii-fly as the pioneer writers of American travels. 
The avidity with which inform.ation in regard to this con- 
tinent was sought in Europe, immediately antecedent and 
subsequent to its colonization — the interest felt in the natural 
wonders and possible future of an immense, productive and 
uncivilized country — the arena it afforded to baffled enter- 
prise, the asylum it promised to the persecuted, the resources 
it ofiered the poor — the conquest it invite<l from regal power 
and individual prowess — the vague charm with which it 
inspired tlie imaginative, and the ficsh material it yielde<l so 
abundantly to the votaries of knowledge — all tended to make 
America and descriptions thereof alike attractive to prince 



38 AilERICA AND ITER COifllENTATOKS. 

and peasant, scholar, soldier, and citizen. Few, indeed, of the 
early missionaries possessed the requisite qualifications, either 
scientific or literary, to make what we should now consider 
desiruhle writers of books of travel. They eitlier, through a 
large endowment of what phrenologists call the organ of 
wonder, exaggerated the natural features of the country, and 
gave fanciful instead of genuine j>icttjres of what they saw ; 
or, from lack of knowledge and imagination, confined them- 
selves to a literal and limited recital of personal adventure, 
whence little i)ractical informati(m was to be derived. There 
is a singular union of extravagance and simplicity, of the 
fabulous and the true, of the boastful and the heroic, in these 
narratives. It must have required unusual discrimination on 
the ]>art of readers in Europe, seeking facts, to disentangle 
the ueb of reality and fiction so often confusedly woven in 
such memoirs of travel. Yet some of them have proved in- 
valuable to tlio historian of our own day, as tlie only known 
repertory of authentic statements as to the early productions, 
aspects, natives, explorations, and phenomena of parts of this 
continent : the integrity and patience of some of these mission- 
ary authors are apparent in their very style and method ; and 
many of their assertions have been fully proved by subsequent 
observation and contemporary evidence. Still, there is no class 
of writings whicli nmst be interpreted with more careful refer- 
ence to the character and motives of the writers, to the state 
of scientific knowledge at the period, and to the sjtirit of the 
age. A certain credulity, tlie result of superstition, ignorance, 
and enthusiasm, was characteristic even of the enlightened 
class of explorers then and there ; and, when motives of per- 
sonal vanity, self-aggrandizement, or national rivalry were 
added to these normal defects, it is easy to imagine how few 
of the clerical raconteurs are to be considered satisfactory to 
a philosoplii6 inquirer. On the other hand, the singleness of 
purpose, the sincere Christian zeal, the pure love of nature 
and of truth, and a certain heroic conscientiousness of purpose 
and of practice, make some of these missionary travels in 
America naive, suggestive, and interesting. As representa- 



FEENCII MISSIONARY EXPLOKATION. 39 

tions of what certain parts of the country were two hundred 
years ago, of liow nature looked, and what life was here and 
then, they afford us a contrast so vivid and surprising to the 
scene and the life of the present, that, on this account alone, 
no imaginative mind can revert to them without realizing 
anew the mysterious vicissitudes of time and place and the 
moral wonder involved in the settlement, growth, and present 
civilization of America. 

Among the French missionaries whose travels on this 
continent attracted much attention in his own day, and, in 
ours, are regarded at once with curiosity and distrust, was 
Louis Heniu'])in, a Franciscan. lie was a native of Holland, 
and Lorn in the year 1G40, Quite early in life the instinct of 
travel asserted itself; for, as one of that privileged mendicant 
fraternity whom every traveller has encountered in Sicily or 
Spain, he wandered asking alms through Italy and Germany. 
It was while thus following the vocation of a pious beggar 
at Calais and Dunkirk, that Hennepin's wanderhig passion 
became infected with that desire to cross the sea, which, 
sooner or later, seizes upon all instinctive vagabonds. He 
enlisted as a regimental chaplain, and in that capacity was 
present at the battle of Sencf, between William of Orange and 
the Prince of Conde, in 10 74. He had passed one year as 
preacher in Belgium ; and had been thence sent by his supe- 
rior to Artois, and subsequently had the charge of a hosjatal 
for several months in Holland. Such was the early career of 
Father Hennepin, previous to entering upon his American 
mission. He was ordered to Canada in 1675, and embarked 
at Rochelle, with La Salle. Having i)reached a while at 
Quebec, he went, the following year, to the Indian mission at 
Frontenac ; he afterward visited the Five Nations and the 
Dutch settlement at Albany, and returned to Quebec in 1678. 
When La Salle prei)ared to explore the Lakes, and des- 
patched the Chevalier de Tonty and La Motte from Fort 
Frontenac to Xiagara, to construct vessels, Hennepin was 
attached to the expedition ; and, in 1677, passed through 
Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, to the mouth of the St. 



40 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

Joseph's, ascended in a canoe to the portage ; conveying 
their slender barks six miles across the country to the Kan- 
karee, they glided down this stream and the Iroquois to the 
Illinois river, and erected Fort Crevecoeur, on the spot Avhere 
now stands the city of Peoria. 

It is said that La Salle's conjectures about the Mississippi 
river " worked upon him ; and that, zealous for the honor of 
his nation, he designed to signalize the French name." His 
character has been thus described : " He was a man of regular 
behaviour, of a large soul, well enough learned, and under- 
standing in the mathematics ; designing, bold, imdaunted, 
dexterous, insinuating ; not to be discouraged by anything ; 
wonderfully steady in adversity ; and well enough versed in 
several savage languages." Here we have all the requisites 
for a great explorer ; yet few have achieved such fame to 
endure such misfortunes. " The government of Fort Ed- 
ward," says his biographer, " which is the place farthest 
advanced among the savages, was given to him ; and he 
going over to France, in 1675, the king made him proprietor 
of it ; he came home with stories of mines, wild bullocks, for- 
ests, &c. ; and there grew up a jealousy of him among his 
countrymen : they thwarted his designs ; and after he had 
picked out forty or fifty of them for a new expedition, and 
had spent years in going and coming, he was once nearly 
poisoned ; he conciliated the savage inhabitants, and gave 
her name to Louisiana." 

When, after the lapse of a few weeks. La Salle was 
obliged to return to Frontenao for supplies, he sent Hennepin 
to explore that mighty river, hitherto only known to Euro- 
peans above the mouth of the "Wisconsin. The adventurous 
friar started on this expedition in the month of February, 
1680, in his frail canoe, and, tracking the Illinois to its mouth, 
ascended the Mississippi to the Falls of St. Anthony, which he 
so named in honor of his patron saint ; and was the first Euro- 
pean who ever beheld those beautiful rapids in the heart of 
the wilderness. Having arrived at the mouth of the St. Fran- 
cis river, in what is now Minnesota, a stream which he thus 



FRENCH MISSIONAEY EXPLOEATION. 41 

baptized from the founder of his own religious order, Henne- 
pin again landed, and traversed the countiy to the distance 
of one himdred and eighty miles ; he sojourned for three 
months among the Sioux Indians ; returned in safety to Que- 
bec, and soon after embarked for France ; and in 1683 pub- 
lished his " Descriptions," &c. This work was the most com- 
plete account of the first expedition of La Salle, and, as such, 
was sought for and read with avidity. Had the record of 
Hennepin's career ended here, his name would have remained 
honorably associated with those of other European mission- 
aries who, with courage and probity, sought for and pro- 
claimed the wonders of the New World, while planting there- 
in the cross and the faith to whose service he and they were 
pledged. But, not satisfied with the glory of a pioneer navi- 
gator of the Father of "Waters, nor with the prestige of a 
faithful attache to a brave but unfortunate chieftain, or that 
of a self-devoted minister of religion, in 1697, ten years after 
the death of La Salle, Hennepin audaciously gave to the world 
his " Nouvelle decouverte d'un tres grand pays situe dans 
I'Amerique entre la Nouveau Mexique et la Mer Glaciale ; * 
claiming therein to have descended the Mississippi and com- 
pleted, for the first time, its exploration. The mere fact of 
his extraordinary delay in announcing this remai-kable experi- 
ence is sufficient to make a candid mind distrustful ; and the 
motive thei'eto seems evident when we remember how imme- 
diately this publication followed i^pon the demise of the only 
witness its author had reason to fear. Accordingly, Hennepin 
has been and is regarded as untruthful by our own and Euro- 
pean historians, except in regard to topographical and local 
details confirmed by other testimony and by observation of 
natural facts. Still his adventures, and the narrative thereof 
possess an interest derived from their early date ; Ave asso- 
ciate them with the first authentic glimpses of the new conti- 
nent in its vast Western phase which were attained by Euro- 

* "New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, extending above 4,000 
Miles, between New France and New Mexico," &e., map and plates, London, 
1698. 



42 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

peans ; we cannot but imagine the Avonder, liope, and curiosity 
inspired by such travellers' tales, and look upon the diminutive 
volumes and obsolete type of the earliest editions with a kind 
of fond reminiscence ; beholding, in fancy, the eagerness and 
incredulity ^ith which they were origiiiall}i4)ondered. And 
those of us who have sailed along the umbrageous and lofty 
bluffs of the Upper Mississippi, and gazed from a steamer's 
deck, in the eai'ly summer morning, upon the magnificent soli- 
tude — the noble stream, the far reach of Avoods, tlie high, cas- 
tellated Ihnestone rocks — and heard a Avild bird's cry, or 
caught sight of a Sioux, a log hut, a hunter — watched the 
moving i)auorama of foliage, prairie, village, fever-stricken 
settlement and growing city alternating with lonely forest — 
realizing how Nature's wild seclusion and Humanity's primi 
tive civilization meet, separate, and mingle on the borders of 
a mighty inland river, flowing deep and far thrqugh the Wes*> 
— so fraught with destiny, so recent in the annals of nations, 
and so ancient in the beauty and grandeur of creation — Ave, 
who have thus gazed and mused, Avhen rapidly borne on the 
wings of steam, Avhere Heimepin's lonely and fragile canoe 
slowly moved through this scene of virgin and unexplored 
loveliness and poAver, cannot refrain from a thrill of sym- 
pathy Avith those emotions of awe and love, of expectancy 
and danger the roving Franciscan must have fel^^ and, with 
all his Avant of veracity, recognize somcAvhat of fraternity by 
virtue of that " touch of nature " Avhich makes us all akin. 
"We accept the memorial of Hennepin, Avhich gives his name 
to locomotive and steam barge, Avhere he first baptized the 
waters ; Ave recall him as we stand in the midst of the dash- 
ing flood Avhich still murmurs his saintly nomenclature ; and, 
when a prairie flower takes us back to the bosom of nature, or 
the wind, unchecked on the Avide plains, sounds the same eter- 
nal anthem that greeted his ears Avho first invaded their soli- 
tude, we feel that, however the face of the land has changed, 
woods fallen before the settler's axe, and aborigines faded in 
the path of civilization, and thrift encroached upon sport, agri- 
culture upon the wilderness, Nature still breathes her ele- 



FRENCH MISSIONAKY EXPLOKATION. 43 

mental chaiTns, and preserves not a few of her most significant 
features. To an imaginative mind there is as much poetry as 
philosophy in the contrast between the Illinois which Henne- 
pin traversed, and that which to-day holds such a world of 
life and labor in her bosom. The vast fields of grain, the 
teeming orchards, the cities and railroads of the present, to 
the political economist, afford a marvellous parallel to the ver- 
dant deserts described in 1680 ; but not less striking is the 
coincidence that deserted Monnon temples are there found, and 
a President of this republic was thence elected to meet the 
greatest crisis of our national life. One sees the extremes of 
civilization and the normal physical resources of this Western 
region, side by side with tlie distinctive natural features which 
excited th« admiration and fill the chronicles of the mission- 
ary explorers. Even a rapid transit brings these associations 
home to the mind. On one occasion, as our train stopped on 
the edge of a rolling prairie, whose treeless, undulating sui'- 
face, for miles, was unbroken save by harvest fields, the early 
descriptions of the face of the country were realized ; and, 
while specimens of the mineral wealth and fruits of the allu- 
vial soil were passed around, there appeared, pensively walking 
on the edge of the " garden of the desert," in entire contrast 
with the solitude and wild fertility of tlie landscape, an Eng- 
lish lady, in the costume of the landed gentry, leading a child — 
their flaxen hair and high-bred manner suggestive of Saxon 
lineage : they were evidently of the better class of emigrants, 
who had sought in the far-away West a sphere, limited and 
dreary in comparison with their English home, hoAvever 
blessed by nature, but auspicious for the future of children 
whose native land aflTords no promising scoj^e either for Avork 
or subsistence. The vivacious and brave heralds of the Cross, 
who, two centuries ago, delighted the Parisians with their 
accounts of a land of boundless woods and waters in the 
West, rarely and imperfectly surmised its destiny in the Prov- 
idential issues of time : it was recognized, indeed, as a new 
domain for the rule of a French monarch, a new sphere for 
the triumph of religion, a new arena for military adventure 



4A AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

and colonization ; but few realized that it was to become a 
grand scene of political development and a refuge for the 
baffled nationalities of Europe. Indeed, there is no chapter 
in the primitive history of the country, which, appreciated 
in all its relations, picturesque, adventurous, heroic, and 
religious, that offers such attractive themes for art, romance, 
and philosophy as these early missions, whereby the Old 
World first won a foothold in the grandest portions of the 
New. It was through the vague reports of their aboriginal 
converts that the pious followers of St. Francis de Xavier, 
were stimidated to seek now a great lake, and now a mighty 
river : it was when in search of new tribes as subjects of their 
missionary zeal, that incidents of romantic interest and scenes 
of unrivalled beauty became known to them, and, through 
them, to the civilized world. Menard, a Huron missionary, 
planned an expedition in search of the Mississippi in 1660 : 
at the mission on tlie Saguenay, the Jesuits heard from their 
wild converts, of a vast lake, that lured them on a voyage of 
auspicious discovery ; while their brethren in New York State 
witnessed the ceremonious departure of the Iroquois to give 
battle to an inimical tribe on the shores of the " beautiful 
river," and, being thus made aware of new links in the mag- 
nificent water chain, urged their explorations in the direction 
of the Ohio. Father Dablon, when superior of the Ottawa 
mission, established a station among the Illinois, and reached 
the Wisconsin river after a toilsome voyage : his " Relation " 
was published in 1670, and contained a map of Lake Superior. 
But the narrative of Father Claude Allouez, who left France 
in 1658, contains one of the earliest accounts of an expedition 
to the Illinois coimtry, which tlie Indians had described to 
Father Dablon as intersected by a river " so beautiful that, 
for more than three hundred leagues from its mouth, it is 
larger than that which flows by Quebec ; and the vast country 
is nothing but prau'ies without trees or woods, which oblige 
the inhabitants of those parts to use turf and dung for fuel, 
till you come about twenty miles from the sea." Allouez 
began his journey thither on the ice ; one of his companions 



FKENCH MISSIONAEY EXPLORATION. 45 

■was killed by a bear ; he had seen Father Kene Menard go 
forth on his sacred work, to die in the wilderness ; but the 
ardent love of religious enterprise, which made his appoint- 
ment to this wild and distant land so welcome amid the com- 
forts of home, was not chilled or daunted : one of the first 
missionaries who reached the Mississippi, his name is asso- 
ciated Avith that of Marquette in the annals of Western dis- 
covery, whom he succeeded in the Eliuois mission ; in his 
light canoe he faithfully explored the shores of Michigan, and 
erected a chapel at Chippewa. The record of strange animals, 
impressive scenery, savage hospitality and games, alternates 
curiously, in these narratives, with the observance of saints' 
days and the rites of Christianity, and the American wilder- 
ness with the associations of the Roman Church. 

In the Old World, it is a pastime of singular fascination to 
the cultivated and imaginative American, to haunt an ancient 
town like Chester, where Roman walls and camp outlines, 
faded banners won in Cromwell's time, and baronial escutch- 
eons or' classic coins identify the site of historic events 
associated with the distant past. To the native of a land 
where all is so fresh, active, and changeful, the shadow of the 
pyramids, the moonlit arches of the Colosseum, and the me- 
dieval towers of Florence impart to the landscape a hallowed 
charm, more impressive from its entire novelty. And yet such 
experiences are possible at home, if the same retrospective 
dreamer will but connect the facts of the past, of which there 
are so few artificial memorials, with the aspect of nature un- 
modified in her more g^-and features by the vicissitudes of 
centuries. Looking forth, in the calm of a summer morning, 
upon a lonely and wooded reach of Western river or lake, let 
him recall the story of pioneer, adventurer, or missionary, 
contrasting it with the tokens of subsequent civilization, and 
the appeal to wonder is not less emphatic, though more vague. 
How wild, remote, exuberant must have seemed the Father 
of Waters to Marquette and Joliet, when they glided out 
upon its vast and unexplored bosom! On the 13th of May, 
1673, with five other Frenchmen, they embarl^d in two 



46 AMERICA Am) HER COMMENTATORS. 

canoes, provided with a slender stock of Indian corn and 
smoked beef; and, guided by such information as they could 
gather from the aborigines, left Green Bay, ascended the 
Fox river, and, on the 25th of June, entered the Mississippi. 
The first naive and quaint record of what they saw, heard, 
and did on this primitive expedition, has, by the liberal enter- 
prise of one of our citizens,* been reproduced as it then greet- 
ed the eyes of their sympathetic countrymen, with the obso- 
lete type so appropriate to such a voyageur's chronicle. 
Father Marquette tells us there of the wild rice, grapes, and 
plums whereAvith they regaled — of the Miamis that assisted 
their portage — of the trace of footsteps on the river's bank, 
following which they came upon a beautiful prairie — of so- 
journs in Illinois villages, calumet-smoking with friendly 
natives, feverish nights with mosquitos — of the dreary bellow 
of herds of buffaloes, and the lowly flights of the startled 
quails. Those months of primitive navigation were fraught 
with a rare excitement to minds reared amid the highest 
existent civilization ; but, as if awed by the precarious life 
and jnajestic aspect of primeval nature, the simplicity of the 
narrative is only equalled by the unprecedented interest of 
the discoveries ; and the good priest's memory has long been 
hallowed by his death in the midst of scenes forever identified 
■wath his brave and pious character. On the shore of Lake 
Michigan, the isolated and picturesque witness of those heroic 
toils and that humane ministry, on the 18th of May, 1675, the 
canoe of Father Marquette entered a small stream, and he 
requested the two men in charge thereof to leave him for 
half an hour : on returning, they found him dead. The site 
of his grave, f near the bank, is still designated, and the 
little river bears his name ; but the brief and artless record 

* James Lenox, Esq., of New York. 

j- " Marquette's body was disinterred from its lonely resting place on the 
lake shore by the Kiskakon Indians, among whom he had faithfully labored. 
Dissecting it, according to custom, they washed the bones and dried them in 
the sun, then putting them neatly in a box of birch bark, they set out to bear 
them to the house of St. Ignatius, at Michilimakinac." — Dablon's Narrative 
of Marquette's Expedition. 



FEENCH mSSIONART EXPLORATION". 47 

of his voyage, a small duodecimo of forty-three pages, is 
the most characteristic memoi'ial of the man, and one of the 
most endeared as well as vivid glimpses of that marvellous 
river and region, as they were first revealed to civilized 
nations.* 

Another French missionary to Canada has left, not only a 
more ample, but more authentic chronicle, and his name is 
often invoked with trust and respect by our historical writers. 
Pierre Francois Xavier Charlevoix was born in 1682, at St. 
Quentin, and died in 1761, at Lafieche. His life was devoted 
to study and travel in behalf of his faith ; and few of his 
order have manifested greater courage, patience, and in- 
tegrity. His American tour, although now but a pleasant 
excursion, was formidable and adventi^rous enough, in his 
own day, to render him more famous than an African or 
Arctic traveller of our own. His account of the productions 
of the wilderness, the extent and character of rivers, woods, 
and mountains, and especially of the character and customs 
of the natives, was not only esteemed when the novelty of its 
details originally Avon readers, but has continued among the 
standard books of travel.f Charlevoix carefully and thor- 
oughly, with the means and opportunities at command, 

* See J. G. Shea's " Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, 
with the Narrative of Marquette, Hennepin, Douay," &c., 8vo., fac-simile and 
map, New York, 1852 ; Rev. "W. I. Kip's "Early Jesuit Missions in North 
America, compiled from the letters of the French Jesuits," 1 vol.. New York, 
1846, and 2 vols. 8 vo., London, 1847; and "Relations des Jesuits, conte- 
nant ce qui s'est passe de plus remarquable dans les missions des Peres de la 
Compagnie de Jesus dans la Nouvelle France : ouvrage publie sous les aus- 
pices du gouvernement Canadien," 3 vols, royal 8vo., of about 900 pp. each, 
Quebec, 1858. " This work, of which only a small number were printed, is a 
complete reprint of all the Jesuit relations concerning the missions in Canada 
and French North America, from 1611 to 1672, and contains most important 
matter concerning the Indian tribes, and the early history of Maine, New 
York, and all the Northwest." 

f " Histoire et Description generale de la Nouvelle France," atlas and 6 
vols., Paris, 1744. 

" Letters to the Duchess of Lesdiguixes, giving an account of a voyage to 
Canada, and travels through that vast country and Louisiana to the Gulf of 
Mexico," 8vo., London, 1*763. 



48 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

ascended the St. Lawrence, traversed tlie region called the 
" country of the Dlinois," and descended the Mississippi. A 
coimty now bears his name in Michigan. He visited the 
East and West Indies, and, when at home again, elaborately 
recorded his extensive travels. They form a valuable work 
of reference Avhen it is desirable to ascertain the pliysical and 
local facts m regard to these countries during the first part 
of the last century. Among the suggestive historical and 
])ersonal associations which the rapid march of events, and 
especially the triumphs of locomotion and intercoiirse, contin- 
ually excite in this age and country, few are more impres- 
sive than the fact that the two most remote points of Charle- 
voix's world-wide journeys were, in a manner, brought to- 
gether when the Japanese embassy visited the United States 
a few years since. In his Avildest dreams the ardent Jesuit 
could scarcely have imagined that the region of mighty rivers 
and primeval woods, which he so laboriously explored amid 
privation, toil, and danger, could, in so brief a period, become 
accessible, populous, and fused, as it were, into tlie compass 
of a recreative tour ; and that the natives of that far-away 
isle in the Indian seas, whose semi-civilization he first reported 
to Europe, should come hither as ambassadors to a vast re- 
public, and cany their Asian aspect through crowded cities 
of Anglo-Saxon freemen. Xever, perhaps, were stationary 
and progressive civilization brought so directly in contrast. 
The Japanese envoys, as well as their distant home, are identi- 
cal with those Charlevoix so long ago described ; while the 
virgin sohtudes of nature, amid which his lonely canoe floated 
or his solitary camp fire blazed, are superseded by busy toAvns 
and i^eopled Avith flying caravans of travellers, representing an 
economy, character, and government full of vitality and of 
prosperous and original elements. 
I It is curious to turn to the somewhat monotonous but still 
instructive pages of Charlevoix, and realize how exclusively, 
at the time he ^^Tote, the interest of this continent was aborig- 
inal and prospective ; for it is with the aspects and resources 
of nature and the peculiarities of the Indian tribes that his 



FRENCH MI8SI0NAKY EXPLORATION. 49 

pen is occupied. Whatever of romance tinges his chronicle 
is Arcadian ; the myths and manners of the different tribes, 
the trees and the reptiles, waterfidls and savannas, are the 
staple themes. His religious views and mission lend a pensive 
dignity to his narrative : like most of his countrymen, he 
develops certain symjjathies with, and finds cui'ious interest in, 
the sauvages ; he pictures the wild beauty and primitive life 
of the country when furs were the chief article of traffic — 
when the convents of Canada, the frontier forts, and the 
Indian villages were the only places of secure sojourn — when 
" fire water " had only begun its fascinating destruction 
among the then naive childfen of the soil — w^hen rude fields 
of tobacco, orchards, and maize fields alone gave sign of culti- 
vation, and game and fish supplied the wanderer's subsist- 
ence. In Charlevoix we find the gei-ms of colonial romance 
in America ; the primitive maps, the old forts, the early crude 
botanical nomenclature, with etlmological hints regarding the 
Hurons, Iroquois, Algonquin, and other tribes. He first 
elaborately pictured the " lacs " — those wonderful inland seas 
which constituted so remarkable a feature of the New World 
to its first visitors, and became the great means of economical 
development by initiating, under wise statesmanship, the pro- 
lific system of communication between the far interior and 
the broad seacoast. 

His letters were commenced in 1720, by order of the King 
of France. One of the best English translations appeared in 
1765. The details are curious now, rather than novel; they 
are carefully noted, and form the best authority for reference 
as to tlie primitive aspect, productions, and aboriginal tribes. 
The topographical statements are often confirmed by experi- 
ence at the present day ; and the imaginative traveller finds 
his enjoyment of the scenery enhanced by contemplating it 
with tne Te'^'^^*^ of this venerable s:uide before him, and con- 
trasting with that early record the scene us modified by the 
sights and sounds of Anglo-Saxon civilization. 

" In New England, and other provinces of America," says 
Charlevoix, " subject to the British empire, there prevails an 
3 



60 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

opulence of which they seem not to have taken the benefit ; 
and, in New France, a poverty disguised by an air of ease, 
wliich docs not seeni constrained. Commerce and the culture 
of plantations Ptiengthen the former : the industry of the 
inhabitants supports the latter ; and the taste of the nation 
diffuses an unbounded agrceableness. The English colonist 
gathers wraith, and never runs into any superfluous expense ; 
the French enjoys what he has, and often makes a show of 
what he has not : one labors for his heirs ; the other leaves 
them in the necessity in whieh he found himself, to shift as 
well a^ they ran. The English are entirely averse to war, 
because they have mueh to lose ; they do not regard the sav- 
asres, because thev think tlu-y have no occasion for them." 
In these remarks we have a key, not only to the national char- 
acteristics of the two peoples, but one which explains the suc- 
cess of one and the failure of the other in permanent coloni- 
zation. Our associations with the name of Chicago and of 
Illinois make it difficult to realize the casual mention of them 
by Charlevoix as the abode of Indians only: " Fifty years 
ago," he writes, " the Miamis were settled at the south end 
of the lake Michigan, in a place called Chicago, whieh is also 
the name of a little river that runs into the lake : the Illinois, 
a savage nation, on the banks of the river Illinois ; they bum 
prisoners, and sing doleful songs." He observes that the 
"navigation of Lake Michigan requires much care, because 
the wind comes from the open lake, that is, the west ; the 
waves are the whole length of the lake, and blend with the 
shock of currents and of rivers running in ; " — a primitive 
description, which comes home to all who have experienced 
a gale there. 

Of the two great rivers of the West, he writes: "Tv- 
Missouri is far the most rapid, and entpr* '' 
a conqueror; after""- ■* ■♦ . 

.^ \ji 
-. , are trees made hol- 
me north by the tops of trees, as 



FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 51 

they lean a little that way ; the iMississi])pi is little kno-wii 
above the Falls of St. Anthony." 

Charlevoix was an eminent teacher, both of languai^es and 
philosophy, and, for more than twenty years after his return 
from America, " had a chief share in the Journal de Trevoitx.''' 
His character and learuinrr gave authority to his " Ilistoire 
Generale de la Nouvelle France." As we read his accounts 
of personal observations and experience in Canada and on the 
Mississippi, of the beavers and cypress trees, the elks and eels, 
the lakes and falls, the maize and oysters, the snakes and tur- 
tles, Indians and missions, we can perceive a directness and 
honesty of pur])ose, which is internal evidence of the author's 
good faith. The simplicity and ingenuousness of his style have 
always been recognized, though its correctness is not admit- 
ted by verbal critics. 

With the wild, luxuriant, lonely, remote picture of the 
Jesuit clear and full to the mind's eye, what a wonderfid pro- 
cess of development, relation, and change, does the Illinois 
region offer to one now familiar with its history and its 
aspect ! The unpeopled desert of the isolated missionary is 
still in the far West, " a vast prairie dotted with groves and 
intersected with belts of timber ; " but, less remote, its climate 
is only modified ; and the herds of buffalo have disappeared, 
the wild deer drink no more at the streams; the same millions 
of fertile acres and a portion of the immense swamp diversify 
the face of the land; the same limestone bluffs frown impos- 
ingly upon the vast river ; the same ])icrcing blasts from the 
Rocky jMountains sweep snow-covered plains ; and, away from 
the settlements, the same blue-bells, wild roses, thistles, sorrels 
fragrant herbs, and lofty weeds aTid hairy-leaved plants, and 
grassy levels make the summer gorgeous and balmy; the scar- 
let trumpet blossoms and the golden dandelion, the low box 
trees, the purple wild grape, and the crimson sumach make 
brilliant and variegated the meadows ; the same gray, mottled, 
and flying squirrels occasionally cross the wanderer's path ; the 
owl may be heard at night, and the turkey buzzards hover over 
carrion ; the crow, the falcon, the hawk, the \ ulture, the mock- 



52 AMERICA AND IIEK COMMENTATORS. 

inpj bird, and tlie rattlesnake, liere and there, attest that old hiin- 
tora aiul early naturalists correctly noted the inditjenous animal 
lil'c of the rcj^ion ; but tall maize stalks, and woolly Hocks, and 
fruitful orchards, and herds of cattle have superseded the wil- 
derness where the elk browsed fearlessly ami the hares bur- 
rowed unharmed. Since the flag of Spain was j»l:uited at the 
mouth of the Mississippi, in 1541 — since, a century later, Father 
Manjuette offered the calumet of peace ami tlie Canada fur trad- 
ers came thither, what vicissitudes and progress have signal- 
ized the scenes that Hennepin so long ago described ! Be- 
stowed by Louis XIV., in 1 712, upon Anthony Crozat, with the 
entire territ<»ry of Louisiana and Wisconsin, the Illinois country 
became the capital upon wliich a trading company, managed 
by John Law, pro<luc('d fmancial convulsion which shook the 
Old Wt»rld and bred political and social revolution — the oidy 
relic and memorial whereof are the poor fragments of Fort 
Chartres which he erected when at the j)innacle of his auda- 
cious success. Wolfe, in 1759, brought to an eml the rule of 
France on this continent ; yet many of her cJiildren lingered 
in the Illinois and preserved intact their characteristic modes 
of lifi', which have been more or less transmitted. In 1703 
the vast domain passed to the British crown; in 1778 its 
posts there were captured by the Virginia rangers under 
Roger Clark ; in 1809 the country l)ccame a separate Terri- 
tory, in 1818 a State of our Union ; .and the name of one of her 
counties preserves the memory of the leader of those M'ho 
Buccessfully opposed any provision for slavery in her consti- 
tution. Her Indian wars, during tiiis period and subsequent- 
ly, form a remarkable historical episode, which includes the 
last stand taken by Pontiac, Tccumseh, and Black Ilawk for 
their aboriginal dominion, and the scene of their final sacritice. 
But, however rom.antic, these events are less interesting to 
the economist than the unprecedented physical development, 
the vast crops of grain, the coal region, and the lead and 
copper mines, which have made Illinois so ]>roductive. Par- 
allel with these demonstrations of latent wealth and normal 
fertility, of Indian history and land speculation, social life 



FRENCH MISSIONARY EXPLORATION. 53 

there has yielded original traits, whereof authors and artists 
have not inadequately availed themselves. The adventures 
of missionary, trader, hunter, settler, and traveller have been 
genially recorded ; the descendants of the original three thou- 
sand French colonists on the banks of the Mississippi, with 
their national proclivities, so diverse from the Anglo-Saxon, 
and manifested in their household economy and vivacious 
temperament — the primitive manners and costmne of the 
farmers, who long conveyed the j»ro<lucts of their farms in 
flatboats to Xew Orleans, clad in raccoon-skin caps, buckskin 
leggings, moccasins, and Unsey himting shirts, with the home- 
wrought, brightly dyed frocks of the women, and the frank 
and brave mimners antl language of this free and thrifty ])opu- 
lation — have yet a traditional chann : here, too, the tercible 
justice of Lynch law had full seo|jo — the ^Missouri ruffians, the 
debris of the Indian tribes, the Western jjolitician, ;md the 
robust or ague-stricken emigrant, made up an unique and 
original ]iopulation, full of salient points to the eye of a Euro- 
pean or visitor from the communities of New England or old 
Southern States. Cooper, in a novel, and Bryant, in a poem, 
have graphically described the life and aspect of the Prairie 
State, which now boasts millions of inhaliitants. Kohl, speak- 
mg of Illinois, compares it in shape to a grain sack, rent in 
the middle by its river, and bursting out with grain at both 
ends. Professor Yoelcher, consulting chemist of the Royal 
Agricultural Society of England, analyzing four samples of 
prairie soil, said : "The most noticeable feature in the analysis 
is their very large quantity of nitrogen — nearly twice as much 
as the most fertile soil of (Ireat Britain ; in each case, taking 
the soil at an average depth of ten inches, an acre of their 
prairie soil contains upward of three tons of nitrogen, and as 
a heavy crop of wheat, with its straw, contains about tifty- 
two poimds of nitrogen, there is thus a natural store of am- 
monia in this soil sufficient for more than a hundi'ed wheat 
crops." 

But the most remarkable fact in the economical history of 
Illinois and its adjacent States, is the effect of locomotive facil- 



64 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

ities and the genius of communication, in developing the re- 
sources and brinixinc:, as it were, to the Atlantic coast and the 
commercial East, the region llouuepin so laboriously and so 
long traversed a mighty wilderness to reach. The contrast 
fully rcalizt'd of the aj)i)roach tluMi and now, is one of those 
modern miracles of practical life to the wonder of which only 
habit blinds us. Vessels go direct from Liver])Ool to Chica- 
go, by crossing the Atlantic, entering the St. Lawrence, and 
surmounting the rapids by means of the Canadian locks and 
canals, entering Ontario, and, after sailing through that lake, 
and a descent of three hundred fi-i-t of the Niagara Kiver, by 
tiie Welland Can.al, reach Lake Erie, tlience througli the straits 
and lake of St. Clair to Lake Huron and Lake Michigan — in 
the heart of the American continent. Four thousand seven 
hundred and tliirty-six miles of road terminate there, of which 
two thousand eight hundred miles are within the State limits. 
These great highways were built to carry oft' the surplus of 
the prairies.* 

As an illustration of the cosmopolitan tendency of the 
population, it w.as but recently that in this distant inland city, 
where a blockhouse fort alone stood within the memory 
of " the oldest iidiabitant," sons of the Bishop of London, of 
Admiral CoUingwood, of the novelist Dickens, with German 
barons and Hungarian officers, were there cheerfully engaged 
in various vocations. 

There is something exciting to the imagination as well as 
impressive to the mind in the fact that the oldest authentic 
written memorials of America, after the narratives of mari- 

• The following table compares the official returns of the population of 
Chicago: 

1848 20,028 

1849 23,047 

1850 29,963 

1862 88,734 

1863 60,626 

1860 110,973 

1862 138,835 

Thus, in thirty-three years, a colony of scTenty persons has grown into a 
dty of nearly 140,000. 



18:iO 70 

1840 4,853 

1843 7,580 

1844 10,864 

1845 12,088 

1846 14,169 

1847 16,859 



FKENCn MISSIONAEY EXPLORATION. 55 

time adventurers, are the letters and " relatious " of the Jesuit 
missionaries. Often wlien a band of hunters or company of 
early colonists penetrated to a rcg^ion of the Avilderness. as 
they imagined, uuvisited before by any Imman being except 
the savage natives, the sight of some relic or token of these 
religious pioneers brouglit into immediate contrast the most 
hallowed associations of the Old World and the virgin wilder- 
ness of the Xew. Sometimes an old aboriginal guide re- 
peated to the astonished strangers what had been whispered 
in his ear when, as a cliild, he j)layed around the council fire 
or the wigwam, of kind and wise men, robed in black, who 
talked to the children of the forest, of heaven, prayed over 
their dead, and baptized their maidens. On other occasions, 
amid the mossy coverings of ancient trees, the curious ex- 
plorer would find rudely carved the effigies or escutcheon of 
the French king : here a broken cross, there a respected grave, 
now a ruined chapel, and again a censer or sacramental cup, 
even in the heart of the woods revived to the exiles the 
images, sacrifices, and triumphs of these indomitable members 
of the Society of Jesus : some of their names are perpetuated 
in those of towns now flourishing on the site of their apostle- 
ship or martyrdom ; others are only preserved on a i)age of 
history seldom consulted. Poets and novelists, historians 
and artists have, from time to time, renewed the pious tra- 
ditions and isolated lives of these remarkable men ; but few 
of the summer tourists who gaze with deliglit ujion the um- 
brageous i>lands of the St. Lawrence, or stand entranced amid 
the foaming rapids of St. Anthony, or watch with rapture the 
undulating sea of herbage and flowers on a blooming j»rairie 
of Illinois or Missouri, associate these characteristic aspects of 
nature witli their first European explorers. Their written 
memorials, however, aptly consecrate tlieir experience : there- 
by we learn how cheerfully scholars, soldiers, and courtiers 
braved the privations and the cruelties incident to such heroic 
enterprises ; we read the artless story of their ministry — how 
at times they feel rewarded for months of suffering by the 
Baintly development of an Indian virgui, by the acquiescence 



50 AMERICA AND ITER OOSfMENTATORfl. 

of a tribe in tin- rites of Christianity, or liy the amelioration 
in the liahits an<l tem[»er of tliese fierce cliildren of nature, 
uniler the influence of consistent, humane, and holy examjilea 
and care. All the correspondence and reports of the Jesuit 
missionaries are interspersed 'with local descriptions, some- 
times vivid and often so specific as to serve as data for natu- 
ralist and historian. Tlio anecdotes of Indian character and 
of personal a«l venture also pve a quaint zest io the stor)' ; 
and not un frequently a deep j)athos is imparted thereto by 
the fate of the writer — dying of hunger, at the stake, or by 
treachery — going forth on their |K'rilous journeys from fort 
or settletnent, conscious they may not hoi»e to return — and 
yielding up their lives with the same intrepid zeal with which 
they bore the discouragement.s, exposure, ingratitude, and 
lonely struggles of missionary life in the wilderness. Jogues, 
Du Poisson, Souel, Hreb<ruf, Lallemand, Senat, I^ Chabe,* 
Joliet, and Marquette, are names thus endeartnl and hallowe<l. 
Among other episodes recorded in the letters of the 
Jesuit missionaries, which combine romantic with historical 
significance, are the accounts of the Iroquois martyrs, of 
Catherine, the saint of th.it triW, of voyages up the Missis- 
sippi, of the mjissacre by the Xatchez, of the mission to the 
Illinois, and of Montcalm's exi>edition to Fort George. Some 
of the letti'rs written by the missionaries to their stiperiors and 
brethren in France contain the earliest descrijitions of por- 
tions of States now constitiiting the most fl(»urishing region 
in the West. In his account of a " Journey through Illinois 
and Michigan, in 1712," Father Marest writes: "Our Illinois 
dwell in a delightful country. Tliere are great rivers, which 
water it, and vast and dense forests, with delightful prairies," 
He descants on the " charming variety " of the scene, speaks 
of the abundance of game, such as bufl^aloes, roebucks, hinds, 
stags, swan, geese, bustards, ducks, and turkeys ; he notes 
the wild oats and the cedar and copal trees, the apple, peach, 
and pear orchards, an<l s.ays the flesh of young bears is very 
delicate, and the native grapes "only moderately good." Of 
the Indians he remarks that " their physical development is 



FRENCH MI68IONAKY EXPLORATION. 57 

fine — the men being tall, active, and very swift of foot ; " he 
describes their mode of life, their wigwams, com staple, 
manitons and medicine men : it is among the women, how- 
ever, that his mission best succeeds ; they, he writes, are 
" depressed by their daily toil, and are more docile to the 
tmths of the gospel," and are invariably " modestly clothed 
when they come into the church." 

The cheerful temperament and quick observation, as well 
as the pious zeal of the French Jesuits, made tliem admirable 
pioneers and explorers ; with enough imagination to enjoy 
and describe nature, and sympathy adecjuate to put them in 
relation with the races they aimed to convert, more or less 
preliminary study enabled them to note the phenomena and 
i^roducts of the new country, if not with scientific comjilete- 
ness, yet with intelligence and precision. Charlevoix singu- 
larly combined the priest and the savan ; he tells us, speaking 
of Christian baptism :imong the savages, how an enfant mori- 
bund fiit gncrit par la vertu dc ce sacrament ; and, at the 
same time, his was the first correct estimate of the height of 
the Falls of Niagara. His " ITistoire de la Nouvelle France " 
is a pleasing memorial of his loyalty and ])ious self-devotion, 
whereto he bo aptly joined the assiduous observation and 
careful narrative of an expedition which revealed so many 
then fresh ami valu.ible facts in regard to the magnificent 
domain partially colonized, and, as was then hoped, perma- 
nently appropriated by France. 



CIIAPTKIl III. 

FRKKCII TRAVLLLERS A S 1> WRrTKRS. 

CHASTELLUX ; l/ABIlfc HOIIIN ; DfCOfe ; BKIftSoT DE WARVrLLS ; 
CREVEUKIU; LA noCIIEKOLCAULU-LIANCorHT ; 
TOLXET ; RATKAL. 

After the colonial ailvcnturcrs and the rclljifious pioncerfl 
liad made tlio natural fVntures of America familiar to Euroj»Q 
— after Bettleinents ha«l been made (diHputcd, declined, and 
flourished) by reprcsontjitivcs of every civilized land, and the 
Eiii,'li>h character was the established social influence in the 
New World — came that raemorablc struggle for political in- 
dependence which attracted so many brave and intelligent 
allies from abroad : some of these have left accoimts of their 
experience and a record of their impressions ; they differ 
from the earlier series of travels in a more detailed report of 
the manners and customs of the people, in a sympathetic em- 
phasis derived from mutual privations and triumphs, in a 
speculative interest suggested by the new and vast prospects 
which tlien opened before a free people, and in the attractive 
personal associations which connect these literary memorials 
with the names of our champions in the War of Independence. 
Perhaps no one of this class of travels in America is more 
satisfactory, from the interest of the narrative and the agreea- 
ble style, than those of the Marquis de Chastellux.* He \'ividly 

• " Vovagc3 dans rAmcrique Septentrionale dans les aim6e8 178'>-'81-'82," 
2 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1786. 



FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 59 

caught the life of America at the time of its most character- 
istic self-assertion. His amiable manners and intelligent zeal 
had won him the special regard of Washington. He was one 
of the forty members of the French Academy, and a major- 
general of the French anny, serving under Count Rocham- 
beau. 

Francois Jean, Marquis de Chastellux, was bom in Paris 
in 1734, and died there in 1788. He was one of those charac- 
ters almost peculiar to the old regime^ in France, wherein the 
7/iilitairc and the man of letters were gracefully combined 
with the gentleman.* At quite an early ago he entered the 
army, and won distinction in Gennany during the Seven 
Years' Mar. I lis agrceaV)le conversation and urbane manners 
made him a great favorite when, xinder Rochambcau, he 
serA-cd in America ; in camp and drawing room, at wayside 
inns and among educated and philosophical men, he was 
alike pleasant and courteous ; and from the commander-in- 
chief of our anny to the shrewd fanner of whose hospitality 
he partook while travelling, from the stately dowager at 
Philadelphia to the rustic beauty of an isolated plantation in 
Virginia, lu' gained that consideration which high breeding, 
quick sympathy, and a cultivated mind so naturally win. He 
acquired no inconsiderable literary rep\itation by a work that 
appeared in \112, JJe la FcUrid Pi/f)h'<jue : the significauco 
of this somewhat ambitious treatise has long since passed 
away, with the tone of feeling and the state of opinion it 
once not inadequately represented ; still, it is an interesting 
memorial of an amiable and accomplished champion of the 
American cause, and a curious illustration of the theories and 
style once so prevalent in France. The Marquis sympathized 
with Condorcet's views of the possible and probable progress 
of humanity, and his work is chiefly inspired with these specu- 
lations ; but it has no claim to logical order or harmony of 
plan ; it has >-igorous thoughts, but they are expressed in too 
rhetorical a manner to impress deeply a reflective mind ; the 
absence of Christian faith is characteristic of the author's 
times and country among philosophical writers : yet, notwith- 



GO AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

Standing the incompleteness and scepticism of the work, its 
brilliant generalizations so pleaiJed Voltaire that he declared 
it superior to Montt'scpiieu's fanious treatise. As in so many 
other instances, the lame of the Marquis de Chastellux, as a 
writer, rests upon the incidental rather than the formal and 
elaborate achievements of his pen. His Vvyagt^n (fans F Ame- 
rique Septentrionale are the spontaneous comments and de- 
scriptions such as till the letters and jtmmals of an intelligent 
travtlk-r ; they are written in a very pleasant tliouirh desul- 
tory style, and abound in details of interest not familiar at the 
time the work appeared. Many imjwrtant ecoiiomieal, social, 
and personal facts are gracefully reeorded ; and the charac- 
ter of the country and of the men who directed the War 
of Independence and the formatiim of a free government are 
described ; there are some lively aneedotic:d episodes, and not 
a few acute speculations : the work is truly French in the con- 
stant allegation of alight vein of remark with serious ob.serv»- 
tion, and warm sentiment with worldly wisdom. The frugal 
and simple ways, the mental indi-pendi-nee, modt-sty, habits of 
reading, and political tendencies of the people elicit from the 
Marquis the most intelligent sympathy ; he appreciated the 
eminent characters to whom the country owed her safety ; he 
notes with accuracy the climate, productions, and habits, with 
which he comes into contact ; but, now and then, a tone of 
pedantry seems inconsistent with the scene and the senti- 
ment ; yet sometimes the associations of both n.aturally excite 
classic .and romantic memories j he quotes Rabelais and Metas- 
tiisio, Molii're an<l (iu.arini ; a fair country girl is suggestive 
of Greuze, and a runil Adonis of Marmontel ; he thinks of 
Buftbn among the novel birds and beasts of the wild ; and a 
Connecticut statesmnn reminds him of a Holland stadtholder; 
Philadelphia is a modern Capua, and he praises the ladies of 
that city for skill on the harpsichord ; and the fortified High- 
lands of the Hudson seem a war-girdled Thrace ; he contrasts 
the silent watchfulness of a Quaker meeting with the chanting 
of the Church of England. The mocking bird and the moun- 
tain top, grand old trees and original human beings beguile his 



FEENCH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 61 

fluent pen. As a digest and epitome of his observations iu 
the New World, his discourse on " The Advantages and Dis- 
advantages resulting to Europe from Democracy in America," 
1787, is privised by La IIar]»e as his best work, and seems to 
have definitely settled the question, as proposed by RajTjal, in 
favor of the advantages. De Chastellux was one of Pope 
Ganganelli's correspondents ; and translated Humphrey's 
" Campaign." The period of his sojourn in America adds 
greatly to tlie interest of his account thereof: the early bat- 
tle lields of the Kevolution were yet fresh, and the numientous 
conflict was drawing to a glorious end ; he saw a fair fugitive 
from the AVyoming massacre at a New England tavern ; and 
j)arted with Washington where he took a final leave of his 
officers, in the " right-hand room " of the old headquarters 
at Newburgh. 

One of the biographers of Chastellux, praising his accom- 
plishments, obser^'es : " Cette alliance des armes et des lettres, 
7iini>is rares autrrfois, fid doxiblcment glorieitx poxir lui.^^ 
His " Essay sur TUnion de la Poesie et de la Musique" and 
his "Vies de quchjues grands Capitaines" were highly com- 
mended by Buffbn, who was president of the Academy Vvhen 
the Marquis was elected a member ; the subject of the latter's 
discours (Fenfrance was Z,e Gout : an appropriate theme for a 
nobleman whose writings indicate the cultivation of taste in 
all departments as a mental habit. It has been objected, and 
justly, to his j)hilosophical writings, that their style is too 
ambitious ; and, in this respect, the sinq)licity and geniality 
of his less pretentious Travels give them a more popular tone 
and scope. They were, notwithstan<ling their immediate suc- 
cess, bitterly critici/.ed by Brissot de Warville. 

An English gentleman, who lived in America at that time, 
translated tlic Travels of the ^farquis from the French, and 
added copious notes. Only twenty-four copies of the original 
had been printed. It is a curious illustration of the period, 
that " at a time when there was very little hope of any pack- 
ets reaching Europe but by means of duplicates," the author 
availed himself of the little printing press on board the squad- 



C2 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

ron at Rhode Island. Only ten out of the twenty-four arrived 
to the address of those for whi»m they were destined, and who 
had been earnestly requested not to take copies ; but such 
was the prevalent desire to know everything possible as to 
the eondition and prospeets of America and the remarkable 
events that had so lately transpired there, thai these few im- 
pressions were widely circulated ; and the translation before 
alliidf(l to ap|)cared in I)ulilinund afterward in L(»nd(>n, in 
17^7.* Whoever would compare the present condition of a 
part of the Southern and most of the New England States 
with that of eiijhty years ago, will find few nmri' jileasant 
authorities than the Marquis de (."hastellux. He united, in a 
singular degree, the gentleman and the scholar, the philosopher 
and the artist, the n\an of the worKl and the goo<l A'llow ; 
accordingly he looked upon the pritnitive life, the original 
characters, the economical resources, and tlie natural beauty 
around him, with curiosity and sympathy ; he ha«l the facility 
of intercourse, the liberal culture, the desire of knowledge so 
requisite for a traveller ; and he was alive to the significance 
of the present in its relation to the future. His appreciation 
of the social virtues of the people and his tolerance of their 
limited means — his interest in their welfare, and his respect 
for their cause, are eviilent on every jtage. No foreigner has 
manitcsted a greater admiration of W.ishington, or more truly 
described his bearing and principles. Some of his obser^'a- 
tions are full of interest for those who delight to trace na- 
tional character and local influence to their sources. Here an 
anecdote, and there a description ; now militarj' details, and 
again social traits occupy his pen : no phase of domestic econ- 
omy or statistics of trade and agriculture, no pretty face or 
shrewd comrade which accident reveals by the way, is allowed 
to escape him ; so that unconsciously he prepared a book of 
reference whence the |ihilosopher, novelist, and historian may 
still draw useful hints. It w.as in the spring of 1782 that the 
Marquis de Chastellux travelled tlirough Upper Virginia, and, 

• "Travcb in North America, in the Tears 1780, '81, '82," 2 vols. 8vo., 
mape, LoDdon, 1787. 



FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 63 

(luring the ensuing autumn, through Massacliusetts, New 
Ilampsliire, and part of Pennsylvania. He was accustomed 
thus to occupy the intervals of jirofi'ssional duty ; and, there- 
fore, his journeys were undertaken fur the express purpose of 
acquainting himself with the country and people— a fact in- 
dicative of liberal curiosity and a love of travel for its own 
sake, which is an indisj)ensal)le requisite for the pleasing re- 
port thereof. It is not uninteresting to revert to some of the 
least unconmion experiences of such a writer, especially when 
we are familiar with the pla<.'es described as they appear after 
nearly a century of prosperous development : we thus obtain 
veritable glimpses into the life of the past. At the outset of 
his journal he speaks of having breakfasted at Providence, 
P. I., " with Colonel Peck. lie received me in a small house, 
where he lived with his wife, Avho is young also, and has a 
})leasing countemuice, but without anything striking. This 
little establishment, where comfort and simplicity reign, gave 
an idea of that sweet and serene state of IIapj)incss which 
appears to have taken refuge in the New World, ai'ter com- 
pounding it with Pleasure, to which it has left the Old.'" His 
local facts correspond with our exj)erience of the town, which 
he describes a.s " pent between two chains of hills, one to the 
north and the other to the southwest, which causes an insup- 
portable heat in summer ; and it is exposed to the northwest 
wind, which rakes it from one end to the other, and renders it 
extremely cold in winter. Of the original source of its wealth 
to the inhaltitants, he says they "carry on the Guinea trade — 
buy slaves and carry them to the West Indies, where they 
take bills of exchange on old England, for which they receive 
woollen stuffs and other merchandise." He never fails to 
note the accommodations at tlie inns, and is minute in com- 
ments on female character and Mjipearanco ; thus, describing a 
maiden at a house where he tarrie<l in Rhode Island, he says : 
" Tliis young person had, like all American women, a very 
decent, nay, even serious carriage ; she had no objection to 
be looked at, nor to have her beauty commended, nor even to 
receive a few caresses, provided it was done without aii air 



G4 AMERICA AND ITEK COMMENTATOBS. 

of familiarity or libertinism. Licentious manners, in fact, 
are so foreij^n in America, that freedom itself there bears a 
character of modesty." lie remarks, as a striking circmn- 
Btancc, that in every house he found books which were evi- 
dently read ; a " town " in America, he obser>es, means " a 
few houses grouj)ed round a church and tavern." The obsta- 
cles to travellin«^ he fmds ince8.santT having often to cross fer- 
ries and to tnujsjtort provisions and baggage on carts ; ho 
alludes to a landlady's expression that she could not fijtare one 
bed, as a local idiom. The chief man at Hartford, in those 
days, was Colonel Wadsworth. The Marquis was his guest, 
and speaks of his honesty as commissary to supply the French 
trooj)S, and of the high regard in which he was hcM by W:i.sli- 
iugton and Lafayette. Of Governor Trumbull he says : " He 
has all the simplicity in his dress, all the importance and even 
jH'dantry, becoming the cliief magistrate of a small republic. 
lie brought to my mind the burgomasters of Holland iu the 
time of the Banicvelts." He examined manufactures, con- 
versed with intelligent men, noted the " lay of the land," and 
estimateil local resources ; he was delighted at the sight of a 
bluebird, and descants upon the limited nomenclature which 
designated every water bird as a duck, from the teal to the 
blavk duck, distinguishing them only by the terra " red," 
" wood," «tc. ; and calling cj'press, firs, Ac, all pine trees. 
He is impressed with the sight of " mountains covered with 
woods as old as the creation ;" thinks always of BufTon as so 
many objects of natural history come in view ; and expe- 
riences a sensation of wonder wlien, in the midst of '' ancient 
deserts," he comes upon trace's of a *' settlement ; " the process 
whereof he describes — how the rude hut gives place to the 
wooden house, the woods to the clearing; and then comes 
a piece of tilled land, and more trees are girdled and 
other roofs are raised, at which neighbors " assist " " with no 
other recompense than a barrel of cider or a gallon of rum." 
" Such are the means," he adds, " by which North America, 
only a hundred years ago a vast forest, is peopled with three 
millions of inhabitants." As illustrative of the equality of 



FRENCH TKANKLLEKS AND WKITEKS. 



C5 



condition and personal indo,.cn,]on<-cs la- s,>caks of tlie indif. 
ferent reception often met with at the inns, where travellers 
often .mve "more trouble than money," and of the custom 
of the comitry, when a i.ublie house is not at han.l, for the 
traveller to claim and pay for byway hospitalifv. He eom- 
pares this conduct witl, the obsecjuious manners of innkeepers 
•n trance, and accounts for it by the fact that, in this j.rimi- 
t.ve community, - innkeepers are in.lependent of their voca- 
tion, lie found broken panes common, and glaziers rare • 
he IS enraptured with the scenery of the Ilousatonic, and the' 
Hudson H,.i;hlands. Amid the latter he is saluted with thir- 
teen guns as major-general, by General Heath, then in com- 
n.and there, the echoes whereof are marvellous ; the scene of 
Arnolds treason inspires him with grave thout^hts ; he de- 
scribes the batteries, praises the officer in command, and ad- 
m.res the magnificent view. - The guns they fired," lie savs, 
had belonged to Burgoyne's anny." Here he is entertain'ed 
by the officers, enjoys their reminiscences of the war, and talks 
over the treason of Arnold, then but two years old ; he visited 
bmith 8 house, and reflects earnestly on this memorable inci- 
dent : - ,n this warlike abode," he .ledares, " one seems 
transported U, the bottom of Thrace, and the dominions of 
the god Afars ; " thence he goes to Lafayette's camp, and notes 
details as to the state of the army ; on seeking his first inter- 
view with A\ ashington, he fin.ls him talking with his oflicers 
in a farmyard, "a tall man, live feet nine inches high, of a 
noble and mild countenance ; " by the chief he is immediately 
presented to Knox, W:une, Hamilton, an<l others. After 
three days of delightful intercourse with the leaders of the 
American army at head.piarters, he breakfasts with Lord Stir- 
ling, and, upon taking leave of Washington, is presented by him 
with .1 horse, of which he stood in much need ; and proceeds 
to New Jersey, where he visits the l)attle fields of Trenton 
Monmouth, and Princeton; at the latter j.lace visitinrr Dr' 
Witherspoon, the head of the college ; and enjoying the'Jiovel 
carols of a mocking bird. "Addison said," he writes, "in 
visiting the different monuments of Italy, that he imagined 



CO AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

himself on classic j^round ; all my 8tcj)s were on martial 
ground ; I went, in the same mominp, to see two fields of 
battle.'' He finds the custom of jrivini; toasts and speeches 
at tahle very irksome ; and, in allusion to (Governor Living- 
i|^ ston, of New Jersey, remarks, " I have often had occasion to 
obser\*e there is more of ceremony than of cnin}»lim(nt in 
America," a discriniinatinj; view of the nianneis of that time. 
At I'hiladeljthia, the Marquis notos his intercourse with Keed, 
whose correspondence with Washinj^ton ko I'ully illustrates 
the anxious j>erplexities of that immaculate patriot's life dur- 
\\\(f the war ; he speaks of a visit to Dr. Krankliirs daughter, 
Mrs. IJache, whom he found " simple in her manners, like her 
respectable father, and ]>osijessed of kindred benevolence of 
disposition;" Robert Morris he describes as a " large man, 
very simple in his in:mners, but his mind is subtile and acute ; 
his head is perfectly well organized, and he is as well versed 
in public aflairs as in his own ; a walous republican an<l an 
Epicurean philosopher, he has lUways played a distinguished 
part at table aiid in business." lie enjoyed interviews with 
Kitteiihouse and Tom Paine, and had a talk on govenmient 
with Samuel Adams. Nothing can Ik; imagined more oppo- 
site than the social code of a Frenchman and a Quaker, the 
one having such excosive faith in maimer and <lealing so 
fluently in verbal courtesies, and the other rejtudiating both 
as inimical to spiritual integrity. Yet there is no trait of 
the American character, as then exhibited, which won more 
sincere admiration from this soldier and nobleman than its 
simplicity ; it is the constant theme of his eulogy ; but this 
beautiful quality did not strike him as spontaneous an<l can- 
did in the Quakers whom he met in the city of brotherly 
love : '* The law," he writes, " obser\-ed by this sect, of neither 
using you nor «>, is far from giving them a tone of simplici- 
ty and candor ; they in general assume a smooth and whee- 
dling tone, which is altogether Jesuitical." Philadelphia, it 
would appear from the experience of the !Marquis, was as 
famous then as now for its market and household comfort ; 
for he expresses a fear lest the " pleasures of Capua should 



FRENCH TKAVKLLER8 AND WUITERS. 67 

make him lor^^ct tlit' cainpait^ns ttf Hannibal ;" l)e theroforo 
(It'tcnninos to leave the luxury of the city, and explore the 
recent battle fields ot'Germantown and UrancUwine. 

The i)ul)lic beneficence of Philadel|>hia, as indicated by the 
endowment of hospitals and corrective institutions, had al- 
ready become a marked feature ; but the Marquis comments 
on a defect, soon after remedied — the absence of a public 
walk. Milton, Addison, and Richardson he found tlie authors 
chietly read by the yoimj; women ; and so universal was the 
interest in an«l knowledge of civic atVairs, that he declares 
that " all American conversation must tinisji with j)olitics." 
His winter journey to Saratoga was a formidable undertak- 
ing, or would have been to a gentleman unfamiliar with the 
hardy discipline of the camp ; its j)rincipal episodes of interest 
were the view of Cohoes P^alls, and a visit to (Tcneral Schuy- 
ler, just after the marriage of his daughter with Hamilton ; 
he inspected some interesting docimients revealing the actual 
condition of Canada, and expatiates on the novel excitement 
and exposure of what he calls a " sledge ride." With the 
j)resent byway scenery of the railroad which intersects the 
central part of Xew York State, it is instructive to read his 
account of that region, through which, by slow stages, he 
penetrated from town to fort and through a snow-shrouded 
wililrrncss. '• The coimtry,'' he tells us, '*■ which lies between 
Albany and Schenectady, is nothing but an immense forest 
of pine trees, untouched by the hatchet. They are lofty and 
robu-^t ; and, as nothing grows in their shade, a line of cavalry 
might traverse the wood without breaking their line or defil- 
ing." Schenectady contained then but five hundred houses 
" within the ])alisades ;" diverging from his road, he visited a 
Mohawk settlement, a few straggling descendants of which 
tribe the traveller of to-day still encoimters, in that vicinity, 
among the peddling habitues of the railway cars. He also 
saw, on the way to Fort Edward, the house formeily the 
liome of the unfortunate Jane McRea ; startled a bevy of 
(piails, and, at a wayside inn, saw a girl " whom Greuze would 
have been happy to have taken as a model ; " wliile, on his 



G8 AMERICA AND HER COiBIENTATORS. 

cliamber table, he found an abridgment of Newton's Philoso- 
phy, and discovered that his landlord, a surveyor by profes- 
sion, and incessantly occupied in measuring land, was well 
versed in Physics. The Marquis, after thus journeying 
through tlie northern section of the country, observing its 
peculiarities, seeking the acquaintance of its leading men, and 
A'isiting the scenes of tlie war, yet fresh in association and 
destined to become memorably historical, rejoined the French 
array then stationed at Newi)ort, K. I., whence, after a brief 
interval, he started on a Southern expedition. 
i The Marquis thus records his method of setting out on a 

journey into Virginia, eighty-four years ago : " On the eighth 
of the month I set out witli Mr. Lynch, then ray aide-de-camp 
and adjutant, now general ; Mr. Frank Dillon, my second aide, 
and Mons. la Ciievalier d'Oyro, of the engineers, six servants, 
and a led horse composed our train ; so that our little caravan 
consisted of four masters, six servants, and eleven horses." 
At the very outset of the expedition he notes that caimcious 
state of tlie climate which in our countiy so often blends the 
aspect of difterent seasons ; writing of the month of April, he 
says : " I regretted to find summer in the heavens, while the 
earth aflbrded not the smallest appearance of spring;" the 
devastations of war were yet fresh ; he sojourned at a house 
which " had been pillaged by the English ; they had taken the 
very boots oflF the owner's legs." On this journey he first 
made acquaintance with a mocking bird, and gives a lively 
description of its performance : " Apparently delighted at 
having an auditor, it kept hopping from branch to branch, and 
imitated the jay, lapwing, raven, cardinal, &c." He finds " a 
garden in the English style ; " court houses usually in the cen- 
tre of counties ; daughters of the isolated planters, " pretty 
nymphs, more timid and wild than Diana ; " and, approaching 
the South, observes a different kind of popular anuisement and 
of traffic than prevailed in New England, especialy cock fight- 
ing and horse trading ; he is struck with the conjugal epithet of 
his landlord, who calls his wife " honey," which he regards as 
synonymous with the French term of endearment — mon petit 



FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 69 

coeur ; with him the transition from gallant to economical 
details is easy, and, traversing the then sparsely inhabited 
region comprised within and aroimd the State of Virginia, he 
observes the frequent instances, among tlie inhabitants, of 
"patriarchal agriculture, which consists in producing only 
what is sufficient for their own consumption ; " and remarks 
that " nails are the articles most wanted in these new colo- 
nies ; for the axe and saw can supply every other want." He 
visits Monticello, a name signifying little moimtain, though 
he finds it a big one, and the house of Jefierson " in the 
Italian style, and more architectural than any in the coim- 
try;" while the master thereof elicits all his enthusiasm: 
" Let me describe," he writes, " a man not yet forty — tall, 
and with a mild and pleasant countenance ; but whose mind 
and understanding are ample substitutes for every exterior 
grace ; an American who, without ever having quitted his 
own country, is at once a musician, skilled in drawing, a 
natural philosopher, legislator, and statesman. Before I had 
been two hours with liim, we were as intimate as if we had 
passed our Avhole lives together ; walking, books, but, above 
all, conversation always varied and interesting, made four 
days jjass away like so many minutes." The twain grew elo- 
quent about Ossian over a bowl of punch, and speculated 
ui)on the genus of American deer, which Jetferson fed Avith 
Indian com, and the Marquis describes as half roebuck and 
half English deer. Tliey also engaged in a meteorological 
discussion, and expatiated on the ad\"antages for observations 
in this then embryo science, afforded by the extent and va- 
riety of the American climate. Jefferson stated some inter- 
esting results of his observations as to the effect of woods in 
breaking clouds and absorbing exhalations. Political and 
social questions were not forgotten by the two philosophers : 
" A Virginian," -sNTites the Marquis, " never resembles a Euro- 
pean peasant ; he is always a freeman, participates in the gov- 
ernment, and has the command of a few negroes, so that, 
uniting in himself the two qualities of citizen and master, he 
perfectly resembles the bidk of individuals who formed what 



TO AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

were called the ' people ' in the ancient republics." He also 
expresses the conviction that " the dignity of man is rela- 
tive.; " and is struck with the superior riflemen of the Vir- 
ginia militia ; he finds novel sport in shooting a wood hen, 
and discovers quite an ideal rustic in the person of a hand- 
some miller : " He was a young man, twenty-two years of 
age, whose charming face, fine teeth, red lips, and rosy cheeks 
recalled to mind the j^leasant portrait which Marmontel gives 
of Lubin." The alternation of pastoral, patriarchal, and aris- 
tocratic maimers, the aboriginal traditions, the grand econom- 
ical resources observed, and frequent personal discomfort ex- 
jDcrienced, offered to his thotightful, susceiDtible, and adventu- 
rous mind constant subjects of interest — a vivid contrast with 
the society and condition of the Old World, a freshness and 
freedom combined with liardihood and privation, an originality 
of character and vast promise for humanity ; the primitive and 
the cultivated elements of life were brotight into frequent 
contact ; and the urbane and intelligent French oflicer seems 
to have had an eye and a heart for all around him suggestive 
of the past or j^rophetic of the future. By a most toilsome 
and perplexing access, he visited the Natural Bridge of Vir- 
ginia ; delighted with this wonderful structure, he measured 
its dimensions with care, and speculated upon its formation 
with curiosity ; it excited in his mind a kind of " melancholy 
admiration." 

Another characteristic scene which impressed him was a 
conflagration in the woods — a feature of the landscape which, 
to his European vision, was ever fraught with interest ; he 
records his appreciation of the " strong, robust oaks and im- 
mense pines, suflicient for all the fleets of Europe," which 
" here grow old and perish on their native soil." He is much 
struck with the cheerful spirit with which emigration goes on 
in the New World, when he encounters, in the lonely wild, 
a buoyant adventurer " with only a horse, saddle bags, cash 
to buy land, and a young wife ; " of the latter he observes : 
" I saw, not without astonishment, that her natural channs 
were even embellished by the serenity of her mind." The 



FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS, Tl 

importance to a traveller of a love of nature and an eye for 
character, is signally manifest in the American travels of 
Chastellux. To one destitute of these resources the journey 
thus described would have l3een irksome, through its mo- 
notony and discomfort. But the vivacious and amiable 
French officer found novelty in the wild creatures, the vegeta- 
tion, and the people he encountered ; he was constantly alive 
to the fact that he was traversing a new country, and there- 
fore bound to observe all its phases ; it is surprising how 
much he discovered to awaken pleasant memories of his 
studies and experience in Europe ; how the charms of nature 
suggested reminiscences of art, and the individuality of char- 
acter recalled the' celebrities of other eras and climes. A vul- 
gar mind, an ignorant man, would have hastened thuough the 
rude domain, and sought amusement only in the more settled 
and populous districts ; but the resources and character of 
the country, the eminent among its inhabitants, their sacred 
struggle for freedom, and the vast possibilities incident to 
such an extent of territory and to a' great political experiment, 
quickened the sympathies and enlisted the careful observation 
of the cultivated soldier. The rabbit that runs across his 
woodland path, the delicate pink blossoms of the peach trees 
in a settler's orchard, the novel sight of a marmoset caught by 
the way, a fat and orighial landlord, tobacco " as a circulating 
medium," and the magnificent prospect from the summit of 
the Blue Ridge, suffice to occupy and interest. A fair Vir- 
ginian recalls to his mind " those beautiful Virgins of Raph- 
ael ; " he is agreeably surprised at the opportunity of prac- 
tising Italian with a cook of that nation he finds in a Rich- 
mond inn, and is eloquent in describing the humming bird, 
and precise in delineating the sturgeon ; repeats the story of 
Pocahontas amid the local traditions that endear her memory, 
and thinks one " must be fatigued with hearing the name of 
Randolph while travelling in Virginia." It would appear 
that " yoimg America " was as real then as now : " The youth 
of both sexes," he says, " are more forward and ripe than 
with us ; and our maturity is more prolonged." Still he finds 



72 AMERICA AJSTD HEE COMMENTATORS. 

special charms iu the Old Dominion, and thinks the inhabit- 
ants of Virginia best situated of all the colonists under the 
English Government. " The Government," he adds, " may 
become democratic at the present moment ; but the national 
character, the spirit of the Government itself, will always be 
aristocratic ; it was originally a ' company ' composed of the 
men most distinguished for their rank and birth." He appre- 
ciates the diversity of political origin and local character in 
the different sections of the country ; observing that New 
England was settled " to escape arbitrary power " — New 
York and the Jei'seys by necessitous Dutchmen, " who occu- 
pied themselves more about domestic economy than the pub- 
lic government ; " that of Pennsylvania he considers a " gov- 
ernment of property — feudal, or, if you will, patriarchal." He 
describes the domestic luxury of the Virginians as con- 
sisting in " furniture, linen, and plate, in which they resemble 
our ancestors, who had neither cabinets nor wardrobes in their 
castles, but contented themselves with a well-stored cellar and 
a handsome buffet.'''' In analyzing their domestic life, he 
makes the just and suggestive remark, " they are very fond of 
their infants^ but care little for their cMldren^'' which trait, 
in a measure, explains the facility with which families dis- 
perse, and the early separation of households, wherein our 
civilization is so different from that of the Old "World. It is 
both curious and instructive, at this moment, when her soil 
has been stained and furrowed by contending armies, which 
rebellious slaveholders evoked by violence because of an indi- 
rect and legitimate interference with " property in man," to 
note the calm statement of this disinterested traveller, after free 
intercourse with all classes of Virginians, eighty years ago : 
" They seem afflicted," he writes, " to have any slavery, and 
are constantly talking of abolishing it, and of contriving 
some other means of cultivating their estates ; " the motives 
thereto, he says, are various — young men being thus disposed 
from "justice and the rights of humanity," while "fathers 
complain that the maintenance of their negroes is very ex- 
pensive." 



FRENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WRITEES. 73 

The Marquis, in a subsequent journey, after visiting Con- 
cord, made a careful observation of Dorchester and Bunker 
Hill ; and, in reference to the battle at the latter place, he 
remarks that " without the protection of the shipping, the 
British could not have embarked to return from Bunker Hill ; 
the little army in Boston would, in that case, have been almost 
totally destroyed, and the town must, of course, have been 
evacuated. But what would have been the result of this ? 
Independence was not then declared, and the road to negotia- 
tion was still open ; an accommodation might have taken place 
between the colonies and the mother country, and animosities 
might have subsided." AVhile at Portsmouth, N. H., on Sun- 
day, he attended church, and heard the father of one of Bos- 
ton's most endeared young divines ; his comment on the dis- 
course is characteristic both of the writer and of the times : 
" The audience was not numerous, on account of the severe 
cold ; but I saw some handsome women, elegantly dressed. 
Ml'. Buckminster, a young minister, spoke with a great deal 
of grace, and reasonably enough for a preacher. I could not 
help admiring the address with which he introduced politics 
into his sermon." One of those old-fashioned brick dwellings, 
with front yard, wide portal, and broad staircase, wherein of 
yore abode the colonial aristocracy of New England, still 
stands, with its venerable trees, in this pleasant town ; and is 
still the abode of genial hospitality ; there our traveller 
" drank tea at Mr. Langdon's ; " and, impressed with the pros 
perous situation and evident Avealth of the place, he declares 
" there is every appearance of its becoming to New England 
what the other Portsmouth is to old." To those familiar 
with the old localities and associations of Boston, it is not un- 
interesting to know, from the journal of the Marquis, that, 
when, in 1Y82, he visited the metropolis of New England, he 
first " alighted at Mr. Brackett's, the Cromwell's Head inn ; 
and, after dinner, went to the lodgings proposed for me, at 
Mr. Colson's, a glover, in the Main sti'eet." In the evening 
he attended the " association ball," which, he tells us, " was 
opened by the Marquis de Vaudreuil with Mrs. Temple ; and 
4 



74 AMEBIC A AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

that " the prettiest of the women dancers were Mrs. Jarvis, 
her sister Mrs. Betsy Broom, and Mrs. Whitmore." He calls 
on Hancock, who is too ill with the gout to see him ; but is 
more fortunate in finding Dr. Willard, president of Cam- 
bridge University ; he meets Mrs. Tudor, Mrs. Morton, and 
Mrs. Swan at a party ; drinks tea with Mrs. Bowdoin, and 
finds the younger lady of that name " has a mild and agree- 
able countenance, and a character corresponding with her 
appearance ; " he dines with Mr. Breck ; of Mrs. Temple he 
wiites : " Her figure is so distinguished as to make it neces- 
sary to pronounce her truly beautiful ; " and describes a girl 
of twelve he meets at the house of one of his Boston acquaint- 
ance as " neither a handsome child nor a pretty woman, but 
rather an angel ; " he notes " feather beds " as a local pecu- 
liarity ; and praises the skill of Dr. Jarvis, and the wisdom 
of Dr. Cooper. 

The Marquis of Chastellux, as we have seen, took leave of 
Washington at Newburgh, in the " pa-rlor on the right " as 
you enter the low-roofed stone farmhouse, now preserved 
there as national property, and consecrated as the " head- 
quarters " of our peerless chief ; " it is not difiicult," writes 
the French officer, " to imagine the pain this separation gave 
me ; but I have too much pleasure in recollecting the real 
tenderness with Avhich it afiected him, not to take a pride in 
mentioning it." If an ardent yet judicious appreciation of his 
character merited such regrets at parting, few of his foreign 
friends deserved it more than Chastellux, Avhose written por- 
trait of the American leader was the most elaborate and dis- 
criminating of contemporary delineations ; familiar as it is, 
we cannot better take leave of the courteous and intelligent 
nobleman and soldier than by quoting it : 

" Here would be the proper place to give the portrait of General 
"Washington ; but what can my testimony add to the idea already 
formed of him ? The continent of North America, from Boston to 
Charleston, is a great volume, every page of which presents his eulo- 
gium. I know that having had the opportunity of a near inspection, 
and of closely observing him, some more particular details may be 



FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND AVEITEES. Y5 

expected from me ; but the strongest characteristic of this respected 
man is the perfect union which reigns between the physical and 
moral qualities which compose the individual : one alone will enable 
you to judge of all the rest. If yon are presented with medals of 
OsBsar, of Trajan, or Alexander, on examining their features you will 
be led to ask what was their stature and the form of their persons : 
but, if you discover in a heap of ruins the head or the limb of an an- 
tique Apollo, be not anxious about the other parts, but rest assured 
that they were all conformable to those of a god. Let not this com- 
parison be attributed to enthusiasm. I wish only to express the im- 
pression General "Washington has left on my mind ; the idea of a 
perfect whole — which cannot be the product of enthusiasm, but 
would rather reject it, since the eliect of proportion is to diminish 
the idea of greatness. Brave without temerity, laborious without 
ambition, generous without prodigality, noble without pride, virtuous 
without severity — he seems always to have confined himself within 
those limits where the virtues, by clothing themselves in more lively 
but less changeable and doubtful colors, may be mistaken for faults. 
This is the seventh year that he has commanded the army, and that 
he has obeyed the Congress ; more need not be said, especially in 
America, where they know how to appreciate all the merit contained 
in this simple fact. • Let it be repeated that Conde was intrepid, Tu- 
renne prudent, Eug&ne adroit, Catinat disinterested. It is not thus 
that Washington will be characterized. It will be said of him, at the 
end of a long civil war, he had nothing with which he could reproach 
himself. If anything can be more marvellous than such a character 
it is the unanimity of the public suffrages in his favor. Soldier, 
magistrate, people— all love and admire him ; all speak of him in 
terms of tenderness and veneration. Does there then exist a virtue 
capable of restraining the injustice of mankind, or a glory and hap- 
piness too recently established in America for Envy to have deigned 
to pass the seas ? 

" In speaking of this perfect whole, of which General "Washington 
furnishes the idea, I have not excluded exterior form. His stature 
is noble and lofty ; he is well mede and exactly proportioned ; his 
physiognomy mild and agreeable, but such as to render it impossible 
to speak particularly of any of liis features, so that, in quitting him, 
you have only the recollection of a fine face. He has neither a grave 
nor a familiar air; his brow is sometimes marked with thought, but 
never with inquietude ; in inspiring respect, he inspires confidence, 
and his smile is always the smile of benevolence." 

Nor did the Marquis fail to remember his American 
friends and advocate their country when returned to his 



76 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

own. He translated the Address to the American Armies, 
written in heroic verse, in 1782, by Colonel Humphreys ; and, 
in a letter to Franklin, dated at Paris, June 21st, 1786, he says : 
" When you were in France there was no need praising the 
Americans ; for we had only to say, ' Look, here is their repre- 
sentative.' But, however worthily yom* place may have since 
been filled, it is not unreasonable to arouse anew the interest 
of a kind-hearted but thoughtless nation. Such has been my 
motive in translating Colonel Humphrey's poem. My success 
has fully equalled and even surpassed my expectations. Not 
only has the public received the work with favor, but it has 
succeeded perfectly at court, especially with the king and 
queen, who have praised it highly." 

L'Abbe Robin was a chaplain in the Coimt Rochambeau's 
army. He writes in the same genial strain as most of his 
comitrymen, with the peculiar kind of observation and tone 
of sentiment which marks almost all French travels. He was 
touched and repelled, at the same time, by the domestic life 
of New England — its religious teachings and exemplary duti- 
fulness ; while he laments the fragile beauty of her daughters, 
and speaks of rum as the commodity Avhich served as a con- 
necting link between Yankeeland and the French colonies. 
Simday in the Puritan capital, impresses him strongly, and he 
discovers, by the dates on the tombstones, that the women 
there are short lived ; the following letter, dated Boston, 
14th June, 1781, is a fair specimen of the Abbe's manner of 
viewing things, while it is a curious picture of the " hub of 
the universe " eighty years ago : 

" At last, after two more days of anxiety and peril, and of sickness 
to me, a favorable breeze sprang up and brought us safely iuto the 
roadstead of Boston. In this roadstead, studded with pleasant islands, 
we saw, over the trees on the west, the houses rising amphitheatre- 
like, and forming along the hillsides a semicircle of nearly half a 
league ; tins was tbe town of Boston. 

" The high regular buildings, intermingled with steeples, appear- 
ed to us more like a long-established town of the continent than that 
of a recent colony. The view of its interior did not dissipate the 
opinion which was formed at first sight. A fine mole or pier projects 



FKENCH TRAVELLEES AND WEITEKS. 77 

into the harbor about two thousand feet, and shops and warehouses 
line its whole length. It communicates at right angles with the prin- 
cipal street of the town, which is long and wide, curving round to- 
ward the water ; on this street are many fine houses of two and three 
stories. The appearance of the buildings seems strange to European 
eyes ; being built entirely of wood, they have not the dull and heavy 
appearance which belongs to those of our continental cities ; they are 
regular and well lighted, with frames well joined, and the outside 
covered with slight, thinly-planed boards, overlapping each other 
somewhat like the tiles upon our roofs. The exterior is generally 
painted of a grayish color, which gives an agreeable aspect to the 
view. 

" The furniture is simple ; sometimes of costly wood, after the 
English fashion ; the rich covering their floors with woollen carpets 
or rush matting, and others with fine sand. 

" The town contains about six thousand houses, or nearly thirty 
thousand inhabitants, with nineteen churches of all denominations. 
Some of the churches are very fine, especially those of the Presbyte- 
rian and Episcopal societie?. They are generally oblong, ornamented 
with a gallery and furnished with pews throughout, so that the poor 
as well as the rich may hear the gospel with much comfort. 

" The Sabbath is here observed with much rigor. All kinds of 
business, however important, cease ; and even the most innocent 
pleasures are not allowed. The town, so full of life and bustle during 
the week days, becomes silent like the desert on that day. If one 
walks the streets, he scarcely meets a person ; and if perchance he 
does, he will hardly dare to stop and speak. 

"A countryman of mine, lodging at the same inn with me, took 
it into his head one Sunday to play a little upon his flute ; but the 
neighborhood became so incensed that our landlord was obliged to 
acquaint him with their uneasiness. 

"If you enter a house, you wiU generally find each member of the 
household engaged in reading the Bible ; and it is a very interesting 
and touching sight to see a parent, surrounded by his family, reading 
and explaining the sublime truths of the sacred volume. 

" If yoii enter a temple of worship, you find a perfect stillness 
reigns, and an order and behavior which are not found generally in 
our Catholic churches. 

" The singing of the Psalms is slow and solemn, and the words of 
the hymns being in their native tongue, serves to increase the inter- 
est and engage the attention of the worsliippers. The churches are 
without ornament of any kind ; nothing there speaks to the mind or 
heart ; nothing to recall to man why he comes there, or what shall 



78 AMEKICA AKD HEE C0MMENTAT0K3. 

be his hope of the future. Sculpture aud painting trace no sacred 
events there to remind him of his duties or awaken his gratitude." 

His Nbuveau Voyage dans VAmerlque Septentriotiale en 
Vannee 1781, consists of thirteen letters, which were published 
in Paris in 1782. Of Boston trade at the period he says : 

"The commerce of the Bostonians embraced many objects, and 
was very extensive before the war. They furnished Great Britain 
with masts and yards for the royal navy. They constructed by 
commission, or on their account, a great number of merchant 
vessels, renowned for their superior speed. In short, their construc- 
tion is so light that it is not necessary to be a great connoisseur to 
distinguish their vessels in the midst of those of other nations. Those 
which they freighted at their own expense were loaded, for the 
American islands or for Europe, with timber, clapboards, pitch, tar, 
turpentine, rosin, cattle and swine, and some peltry. But their 
principal article of commerce was the codfish which they found near 
their coast, and particularly in the Bay of Massachusetts. This fish- 
ery amounted to fifty thousand quintals, which they exported to the 
other New England provinces, and even to Spain, Italy, and the Med- 
iterranean. Those of the poorest quality were destined for the ne- 
groes of the islands. They employ a large number of men, who make 
excellent mariners. The province of Massachusetts, which has a poor 
soil, will always be powerful, owing to this branch of commerce ; and 
if one day this new continent spreads its formidable forces upon the 
sea, it is Boston that will first advance. In exchange for this mer- 
chandise, they bring back the wines of Madeira, Malaga, and Oporto, 
which they prefer to ours, on account of their mildness, and perhaps 
also from the eftect of habit. They take from the islands a good quan- 
tity of sugar, which they use for their tea, which the Americans drink 
at least twice a day ; they also bring from there a greater quantity 
of molasses, which they distil into rum, their ordinary beverage. 
The importation was so considerable, that before the war it was' 
only worth two shillings a gallon. 

" Their fishery, their commerce, and the great number of vessels 
which they build, have made them the coasters of all the Northern 
colonies. 

" It is estimated that in 1748 five hundred vessels cleared at this 
port for a foreign trade, and four hundred and thirty entered it ; and 
about one thousand vessels were employed in the coasting trade. It 
appears, however, from the statement of an Englishman, that their 
commerce has declined. In 1738, they constructed in Boston forty- 



FKENCII TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. , 79 

one ships, making a total of 6,324 tons ; in 1743, thirty-eight were 
built ; in 1746, twenty ; in 1749, fifteen, making in total 2,450 tons. 
This diminution of the commerce of Boston arises, probably, from the 
new settlements formed along the coast, which attract to themselves 
tlie different branches that their situation may render most favorable. 
"The great consumption of rum by the Americans induced them 
to establish commercial relations with the French colonies ; our 
wines and brandy rendering this liquor little used by us, they flatter- 
ed themselves with bringing the molasses to a better use. This spec- 
ulation resulted beyond their expectations ; they had only to give in 
exchange wood and salt provisions." 

The following observations indicate the feeling and rela- 
tions between our countrymen and their Gallic allies : 

"It is diflficult to imagine the opinion that the Americans enter- 
tained of the French before the war. They regarded them as enslav- 
ed under the yoke of despotism, delivered up to prejudices and super- 
stitions, almost idolaters in their worship, incapable of firmness and 
stability, and occupied only with curling their hair and painting their 
faces ; unfeeling, faitldess — not even respecting the most sacred du- 
ties. The English were eager to spread and strengthen these preju- 
dices. Presbyterianism [Congregationalism], an implacable enemy 
of Catholicism, has made the Bostonians, where this sect is dominant, 
still more disposed to this opinion. 

"All seemed, at the commencement of the war, to confirm these 
views. Most of the Frenchmen who first came to America at the 
rumor of revolution, were men involved in debts and ruined in repu- 
tation, who announced themselves with titles and fictitious names, 
obtained great distinction in the American army, received considera- 
ble advance money, and suddenly disappeared. 

"The simplicity of the Americans and their inexperience ren- 
dered these impositions easy. Many of these adventurers even com- 
mitted crimes worthy of the scaffold. The first merchandise that the 
Bostonians received from France contributed again to support them 
in these notions, so unfavorable to our honesty and industry. Even 
at the present time, French goods are sold, for this reason, at a much 
lower price than English goods of the same quality. 

" On the arrival of M. le Count d'Estaing, the people were very 
much astonished not to see frail and deformed men. They believed 
that these had been expressly chosen to give them a more advanta- 
geous idea of the nation. Some with over-florid faces, whose toilet 
-was careless, convinced them that we made use of rouge. 



80 AMEKICA AND HER COISQIENTATOKS. 

" Notwithstanding ray being a Frenchman and Catholic priest, I 
receive daily new civilities in many good families of this city. But 
the people still retain their first prejudices. I have lately seen a 
proof of this in an event wiiich has at the same time served to make 
me better acquainted with their character. The house where I 
lodged took fire; it belonged to a Frenchman. One can imagine 
what emotion this sight would produce in a city built of wood. The 
people ran thither in crowds, but when they arrived there, they re- 
mained only spectators of the scene. I caused the doors to be closed, 
in order to arrest the currents of air, and sealed the chimney, whence 
the fire was, hermetically with a wet cloth, causing water to be 
poured upon it without intermission, that it might retain its damp- 
ness. The women of the house were enraged at the sight of their 
flooded and dirty floor. If I had not made myself the master, they 
would have preferred to let the danger increase. 

" The arrival of the army of M. le Count de Eochambeau at Ehode 
Island spread terror there. The country was deserted, and those 
whom curiosity led to Newport found the streets empty. All felt the 
importance of dissipating these prejudices, and exercising self-respecu 
has contributed to this. The superior oflicers established the strict- 
est discipline ; the other oflicers employed that ])oliteness and ameni- 
ty which has always characterized the French nubility ; the private 
soldier, even, has becoine gentle and circumspect, and in a year's so- 
journ here, not one complaint has been made. 

" The French at Newport are no longer a trifling, presumptuous, 
noisy, and ostentatious people ; they are quiet and retiring, limiting 
their society to that of their guests or visitors, that they may become 
daily more dear to them. These young noblemen, whose fortune, 
birth, and court life would naturally lead them to dissipation, luxury, 
and extravagance, have given the first example of simplicity and 
frugality ; they have shown themselves as aftable and familiar as if 
they had lived entirely among similar people. This elevated con- 
duct has brought about an entire revolution in the niiiuls of people. 
Even the Tories cannot help loving the French, while blaming the 
cause whicli they uphold, and their departure afllicts a thousand 
times more tlian their arrival alarms." 

An interesting evidence of tlie vast promise, social and 
economical, with which the extent, resources, and political 
prospects of America inspired thoughtful and enthusiastic 
observers at this period, may be found in the characteristic 
exj^ressions of a clergyman, born in Philadelphia, but of 



FKENCH TEAVELLEES Al^D WEITEES. 81 

Huguenot origin, whose rhetoric and writing were much 
admired in his own day, and whose name is not wholly mifa- 
miliar in our own, from the circumstance that, at the sugges- 
tion of Samuel Adams, he opened the old Continental Con- 
gress of 1774 with prayer. Three years previously, while 
assistant minister of Christ Church, Philadelphia, were pub- 
lished the Letters of Tamoc Caspipina, in which Jacob Duche 
thus speaks of the country, just before the Revolution : " My 
attachment to America, I am apt to think, proceeds from the 
prospects of its growing greatness. In Europe, architecture, 
gardening, agriculture, mechanics are at a stand ; the eye is 
weary Avith perpetual sameness ; after roaming over the mag- 
nificence of churches and palaces, we are glad to fix our gaze 
awhile uj^on a simple farmhouse or straw-built cottage ; we 
feel a particular delight in tracing the windings of a beautiful 
river. The objects of Art, as well as those of Nature, in 
this New World, are, at present, m sucli a state as affords the 
highest entertainment ; here and there, in the midst of ven- 
erable woods, scarce a century ago the haunts of roaming 
savages, are fields of corn and meadows. Within the compass 
of a mile we behold Nature in her original rusticity and Art 
rising by rapid advances. I see learning stripped of all scho- 
lastic pedantry and religion restored to gospel purity." The 
transition state, the strong contrasts, the process of develop- 
ment, and the opportunity of going back to first and true 
principles in civil and social life, hinted at in such views, con- 
stituted the great attraction which the New World offered to 
philosophical and benevolent minds. This it was that urged 
Berkeley's prophetic muse and gracious enterprise, and, a cen- 
tury before, the " Church Militant " declared George Herbert's 
" Prophecy," in the " Country Parson," realized in America. 

Duche's reputation, however, has a less amiable and honor- 
able side ; of him it has been written : " He, whose sublime 
prayer as chaplain of the Continental Congress, melted the 
hearts of his audience every time he bent to repeat it, fell 
away from his loyalty, and enjoys the sole infamy of having 
sought to corrupt Washington. While the wretch was pray- 
4* 



82 AMERICA AND HEK COIVIMENTATOKS. • 

ing to Almighty God for the success of the Revolution, liis 
heart was black with treason." 

One of those extraordinary children of the time who, with- 
out any remarkable endowments or adaptation for the career 
of politics, were whirled into that sphere of thought and action 
by the tides of the French Revolution, came to America in 
1788, and, like Ceracchi, the sculptor, not only derived new 
ideas and enthusiasm from his visit, but became a martyr to 
his convictions and the circumstances of his native land. We 
find the record* of his observations in the New World 
quoted with deference by his contemporaries ; it was trans- 
lated more than once into English, f and seems to have been 
more permanently attractive than any other of the several 
political treatises from the same pen ; one of Brissot's biogra- 
phers calls him an ecrivain mediocre et tin dissateur monotone 
et verheux / yet, with all his speculative hardihood and French 
sentiment, many of his remarks on our country at the time 
are characteristic and noteworthy. Born in 1754, at the vil- 
lage of Ouarville, near Chartres, he subsequently modified his 
local appellation into Warville, for the prestige of an English 
name wliile under surveillance ; placed in the Bastile for the 
hardiesse de ses ecrits contre Vinegcdite des rmigs, he was Uber- 
ated through the influence of the Duke of Orleans, whose 
sympathy in his belialf had been excited by Madame de Gen- 
lis ; and the association thus induced led to his marriage with 
one of the ladies of the Duchess and to his embassy to Eng- 
land on a secret mission as lieutenant of police. Having 
vainly sought to advance his fortunes in that country, he 
crossed the ocean early in 1788 ; and, in the following year, 
left our shores on account of the terrible political and social 
crisis which convulsed his own country. He soon became 

* Nouvcau Voyage dans les Etats Unis de I'Amerique Septentiionale, 
fait en 1788, 3 vols., Paris, 1791. 

f Brissot de Warville's New Travels in the United States of America, per- 
formed in 1788, 8vo., London, 1792. 

Brissot's Travels in the United States in 1788, with Observations on the 
Genius of the People and Government, &c., 8vo., 1794. 



FBENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 83 

prominent as a joui-nalist in Paris, was bold and unscrupulous 
as an advocate of revolution, and soon drew upon himself 
the bitter attacks of rivals and opponents, one of whom, 
Morande, issued a pamphlet charging Brissot with the basest 
conduct while in England, and proposing to make JBrlssoier 
the synonyme of Voter. Undaunted by scandal, he took an 
active part in forwarding the petition of the Champs du 
3fars, whereby he alienated Lafiiyette, with whom he osten- 
sibly and arderrtly sympathized ; chosen a deputy, and, on ac- 
count of his foreign travels, jolaced on the diplomatic commit- 
tee, Brissot advocated war Avith Europe, attached himself to 
Delessart, then at the head of foreign aftliirs, and, with the 
disgrace of the latter, became the object of invective from 
Camille Desmoulins and of persecution from Robespierre. 
Brissot reverted to his original theories, denounced those who 
were attached to the king, was accused of federalism, which 
he had defended as the true principle of the American Gov- 
ernment, and of conspiracy against the French republic. H^ 
drafted the declaration of war against England and Holland ; 
and never ceased, with tongue and pen, to attack the colonial 
proprietors and plead for their slaves ; so that he was consid- 
ered a prime instigator of the St. Domingo insurrection : 
proscribed on the last of May, 1795, he was soon after arrest- 
ed at Moulins, and perished, by the guillotine, during the 
following October. There was something anomalous in his 
character ; of feeble constitution, he was energetic and perti- 
nacious ; an adventurer, he failed to seize opportunities for 
advancing his OAvn interest ; without being a man of pleasure, 
he neglected his wife and children, leaving them without the 
means of subsistence ; of this he sincerely repented at last, and 
died bravely. He accomplished little practical good, while 
con\Tnced he could regenerate his country. His Voyage aux 
Mats ZTnis was first published at Paris in 1791. 

Brissot expatiates on the religious tolerance he found pre- 
vailing in Boston in 1788. " Music," lie writes, " which was 
proscribed by their divines as a diabolical art, begins to form 
a part of their education ; you hear, in some rich houses, the 



84 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

pianoforte." He notes the absence of cafes in that city, and 
the existence of clubs " not held at taverns, but at each 
other's houses." " A favorite amusement," he adds, " is to 
visit the coimtry in parties, and drink tea, spruce beer, and 
cider ; " he notes the " distilleries of rum at Watertown, des- 
tined for the coast of Guinea," and declares that " two mala- 
dies afflict the State — emigration west and manufactures." 
He exults in the sight of his native authors in the library of 
Harvard College : " The heart of a Frenchman palpitates," he 
writes, " to find Racine, Montesquieu, and the Encyclopedie, 
where, a hundred and fifty years ago, smoked the calumet of 
the savage." Hancock was then Governor, Jarvis the lead- 
ing physician, and Willard president of Harvard College, each 
of whom Brissot seems to have ajipreciated ; and he compli- 
ments as leaders in Boston society, Wigglesworth, Sullivan, 
Lloyd, Dexter, and Wendall ; he ex;plores Bunker Hill, and 
visits John Adams, whom he compares to Epaminondas. He 
suggests the establishment of diligences in Massachusetts ; and 
describing his journey from Boston to New York, commends 
the white sheets of Spenser and the cheaj^ breakfast at Brook- 
field. He is vexed at the tolls ; sees Colonel Wadsworth at 
Hartford, and remembers that Silas Dean is a native of 
Weathersfield, where the immense fields of onions duly im- 
press him. New Haven interests him as having " produced 
the celebrated poet Trumbull, author of the immortal 
McFingal ; " at Fairfield, " the pleasures of the voyage ended," 
and thenceforth there was " a constant struggle with rocks 
and precipices." At New Rochelle he sees Mr. Jay, and at 
Rye finds an excellent inn. He witnessed Fitch's steamboat 
experiment on the Delaware ; and was interested in the 
" places fortified by the English," as he approached New 
York. The market, the blacks, and the Quakers of Philadel- 
phia are subjects of curious observation ; the calmness and 
the costume of the latter fascinated him to such a*degree that, 
for a while, he abjured the use of hair powder and other luxu- 
ries of the toilet ; and describes with interest a Quaker farm, 
meeting, and funeral. Of the social characteristics of the 



FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 85 

people, especially in the Eastern States, lie thus speaks : " La 
proprete sans luxe est une des caracteres physiognomonique de 
cette purete morale ; et cette proprete se retrouve pai"-tout a 
Boston, dans I'habillement, dans les maisons, dans les eglises ; 
rien de plus charmant que le coup d'a?il d'un eglise ou d'un 
meeting. Je ne me rappellerai jamais sans emotion le plaisir 
que je rassentis, en entendant xm fois le respectable ministre 
Clarke qui a succede docteur Cooper." But, like most of his 
countrymen who then visited and described the young re- 
public, his wai'mest admiration was reserved for " the Father 
of his Country," whom he visited, and thus describes as only 
a Frenchman would : " This celebrated general is nothing 
more at present than a good farmer. His eye bespeaks great 
goodness of lieart ; manly sense marks all his answers, and he 
is sometimes animated in conversation ; but he has no charac- 
teristic feelings which render it difficult to seize him. He 
announces a profound discretion and a great diffidence in him- 
self ; but, at the same time, an unshaken firmness, when once 
he has made a decision. His modesty is astonishing to a 
Frenchnnan. He speaks of the American war and of his vic- 
tories as of things in which he had no dii'ection. He spoke to 
me of Lafayette with the greatest tenderness." Brissot 
passed three days at Mount Vernon, and, according to his 
own statement, was " loaded with kindness." The after 
career and melancholy fate of Brissot lends a peculiar interest 
to his narrative ; inconsistently combined and imperfectly 
manifested in his life and nature, we find the philosopher and 
the republican (wherein he declared Priestley and Price were 
his models), the philanthropist, the man of letters, the editor, 
and the politician. He criticized Chastellux — defended Amer- 
ica ; according to his opponents, " fled with a lie," and yet, 
by undisputed testimony, died with courage. He thought 
our lawyers superior ; and calls Isaiah Thomas the Didot of 
America : associating with Franklin, Madison, Hamilton, and 
other eminent citizens, he learned highly to estimate the in- 
fluence of free institutions upon hmnan character. Among 
other pleasant sojourns in New England he delighted to re- 



Ob AMERICA AND HEK C0MMENTAT0K8 . 

member the " Lam-els," where he was entertained by Dr. Dal- 
ton, while on his way from Newburyport up the Merrimac. 
In his apostrophe to this bea^^tiful stream, Whittier gracefully 
alludes to Brissot's enjoyment thereof: 

" Its pines above, its Avaves below, 

The west wind down it blowing, 
As fair as when the young Brissot 

Beheld it seaward flowing, — 
And bore its memoiy o'er the deep 

To soothe a martyr's sadness. 
And fresco, in his troubled sleep, 

His prison walls with gladness." 

Brissot, seeking to imite economical with social philoso- 
phy, devotes no inconsiderable portion of his work to the 
commerce and commodities of the New World ; like other 
sojourners of that era, he is beguiled into speculative remarks 
as to the maple tree as a substitute for the sugar cane ; coin- 
cident with his visit was the initial movement in behalf of the 
negroes, which then enlisted the best sympathies of the new 
republic ; anti-slavery societies had just then been established 
in various parts of the country, and their object was freely 
discussed in regions where, in our day, law and social tyranny 
barred all expression thereon. Brissot rejoiced in Washing- 
ton's Aaews and purposes in this regard : " It is a task," he 
writes, " worthy of a soul so elevated, so pure, and so disin- 
terested, to begin the revolution in Virginia, to prepare the 
way for the emancipation of the slaves." He was not always 
a true prophet, as for instance, when he remarks : " Albany 
will soon yield in prosperity to a town called Hudson." The 
spectator of tAvo, and the actor and victim in one revolution, 
there is a certain pensive chai'm in his earnest appreciation of 
the political and social advantages of America : " The United 
States," he declares, " have demonsti'ated that the less active 
and powerful the Government, the more active and powerful 
the people " — a moral fact eminently illustrated by the recent 
history of the nation. He appreciated the essential infliience 
of personal character to attain civic prosperity : " There can 



FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WRITERS. 87 

be no durable revolution," he observes, " but where reflection 
marks the operation and matures the ideas : it is among such 
men of principles that you find the true heroes of humanity — 
the Howards, Fothergills, Penns, Franklins, Washingtons, 
Sidneys, and Ludlows." He invokes his erratic countrymen 
who wish for " valuable instruction " to ponder his record : 
" Study the Americans of the present day, and see to what 
degree of j^rosperity the blessings of freedom can elevate the 
industry of man ; hoAV they dignify his nature and dispose 
him to universal fraternity ; by what means liberty is pre- 
served I and that the great secret of its duration is good 
morals." 

Thus enthusiastic as a republican, and recognizing so 
warmly the simplicity of rural and the intrepidity of working 
life in America, Brissot looked with suspicion upon the 
encroachments of fashion and wealth upon manners and 
tastes. It is amusing to read his account of New York and 
find so many coincidences at the present day in her social 
tendencies, and to compare the limited indulgences then prac- 
ticable with the boiindless exti-avagance now so apparent. 
Thus he wrote of the commercial metropolis of the New 
World in 1788: 

" The presence of Congress, with the diplomatic body and the 
concourse of strangers, contributes much to extend here the ravages 
of luxury. The inhabitants are far from complaining of it ; they 
prefer the splendor of wealth and the show of enjoyment to the sim- 
plicity of manners and the pure pleasures which result from it. If 
there is a town on the American continent where the English luxury 
displays its follies, it is New York. You -will find here the English 
fashions : in the dress of the women you will see the most brilliant 
silks, gauzes, hats, aud borrowed hair ; equipages are rare, but they 
are elegant: the men have more simplicity in their dress ; they dis- 
dain gewgaws, but they take their revenge in the luxury of the table ; 
luxury forms already a class of men very dangerous to society ; I mean 
bachelors ; the expense of women causes matrimony to be dreaded 
by men. Tea forms, as in England, the basis of parties of pleasure : 
many things are dearer here than in France ; a liairdresser asks 
twenty shillings a month ; washing costs four shillings tlie dozen." 

Lafayette, in his letter introducing Brissot to Washington, 



88 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

writes : " He is very clever, and wishes to write the history 
of America." It is a singular coincidence that while he 
praises the inns of the country, which were so generally 
complained of by English travellers, he expresses a national 
repugnance to a habit now so prevalent among his country- 
men as, in the view of some of the late critics, to have essen- 
tially modified their disposition of mind, if not of bodily tem- 
perament. " The habit of smoking," observes Brissot, in his 
account of New York, " has not disappeared with the other 
customs of their fathers — the Dutch. They use cigars. 
These are leaves of tobacco rolled in the form of a tube six 
inches long, and are smoked without the aid of any instru- 
ment. This usage is revolting to the French, but it has one 
advantage — it favors meditation and prevents loquacity." It 
is characteristic of this writer's political prepossessions that, 
while he found " decency, neatness, and dignity " in the 
taverns, when dining with General Hamilton he recognized 
in his host the " countenance of a determined republican." 

Much ridicule has beei\ expended upon that artificial rural 
enthusiasm which once formed a curious phase of French 
literature, wherein the futile attempt was made to graft the 
ancient Arcadian on the modern rustic enjoyment of nature. 
This incongruous experiment originated in Italy, and found 
its best development in the pastoral verse of Guarini and San- 
nazzaro ; but when the Parisian pleasure-seekers afiected the 
crook and simplicity of shepherd life — when box was trimmed 
into the shape of animals and fountains, grottos and bowers, 
in the midst of fashionable gardens, and the scent of musk 
blended with that of pines and roses — the want of genuine 
love of and sympathy with nature became ludicrously appa- 
rent ; the manners and talk of the salon were absurd in the 
grove, and the costume and coquetry of the ballroom were 
reproached by the freedom and calm beauty of woods and 
waters. The hearty love of covmtry life which is an instinct 
of the English, and has found such true and memorable ex- 
pression in the poetry of Great Britain, finds an indifierent 
parallel in the rhymes of Gallic bards or the rural life of the 



FRENCH TBAVELLEES AJSTD WRITERS. 89 

gentry of France. But there is a vein of rural taste and feel- 
ing, of a more practical kind, native to the French heart — a 
combination of philosophic content and romance — a love of 
the free, independent life of the wilderness, a capacity of adap- 
tation to new conditions, and a facility in deriving satisfac- 
tion from inartificial pleasures, which, when united to the 
poetical instinct, makes nature and agricultural life a singu- 
larly genial sphere to a Frenchman. The sentiment of this 
experience has been eloquently uttered by St. Pierre, Chateau- 
briand, and Lamartine ; its practical realization was long evi- 
dent in the urbane, cheerful, and tasteful colonists of Canada 
and of the West and South of the United States ; and the 
writings of French travellers there and in the East, abound 
in its graceful commemoration. The literature of American 
travel is not without memorable illustrations thereof; and 
one of the best is a book, which, although the production of 
a Frenchman, was originally written in English under the title 
of " Letters of an American Farmer." * It is a most pleasing 
report of the possible resources and charms of that vocation, 
when it was far more isolated and exclusively rural than at 
present, when town habits had not encroached upon its sim- 
plicity or fashion marred its independence. Somewhat like a 
prose idyl is this record ; Hazlitt delighted in its oiaive enthu- 
siasm, and commended it to Charles Lamb as well as in the 
Quarterly, as giving " an idea how American scenery and man- 
ners may be treated with a lively poetic interest." " The 
pictures," he adds, " are somewhat highly colored, but they 
are vivid and strikingly characteristic. He gives not only the 
objects but the feelings of a new country." The author of 
this work. Hector St. John Crevecoeur, was of noble birth, a 
native of Normandy, born in 1731 ; he was sent to England 
when but sixteen years old, which is the cause of his early 
and complete mastery of our language. In 1754 he came to 
New York, and settled on a fann in the adjacent region. 

* " Letters from an American Farmer, conveying some Idea of the Late 
and Present Interior Circumstances of the British Colonies in North America," 
by J. H. St. John Crevecoeur, 8vo., London, 1782. 



90 AMEEICA AlfD HEE COMMENTATORS. 

The British troops repeatedly crossed over and lingered upon 
his estate during the war of the Revolution, much to his 
annoyance and its detriment. His affairs obliged him to 
return to France in 1780, and he vras allowed to pass through 
the enemy's lines in order to embark with one of his family ; 
but the vessel was intercepted by the French fleet then off 
the coast, and Crevecoeur was detained several months under 
suspicion of being a spy. After his release he reembarked for 
Europe, and reached his paternal home safely, after an absence 
of twenty-seven years. In 1783 he returned to New York to 
find his dwelling burned to the ground, his wife dead, and his 
children in the care of friends. 

He brought with him, on his return to America, a commis- 
sion as French consul at New York — a situation which he 
honorably filled for ten years, when, once more returning to 
his native land, he resided at his comitry seat near Rouen, and 
subsequently at Sarcelles, where he died in 1813. All ac- 
counts agree in describing him as a man of the highest prob- 
ity, the most benevolent disposition, rare intelligence, and 
engaging manners. Washington esteemed him ; he made a 
journey in Pennsylvania with Franklin, on the occasion of 
the latter's visit to Lancaster to lay the corner stone of the 
German college. The account of the incidents and conversa- 
tion during this trip recorded by Crevecoeur, are among the 
most characteristic reminiscences of the American philosopher 
extant. His " Letters of an American Farmer " were pub- 
lished in London in 1782. He translated them into his native 
tongue.* Tliey have a winsome flavor, and picture so delec- 
tably the independence, the resources, and the peace of an 
agricultural life, just before and after the Revolution, in the 
more settled States of America, that the reader of the present 
day cannot feel surprised that he beguiled many an emigrant 
from the Old World to the banks of the Ohio and the Dela- 
ware. But this charm originated in the temper and mind of 
the writer, who was admirably constituted to appreciate and 

* " Lettres d'un Cultivateur Americain, traduites de I'Anglois," 2 vols., 
8vo., Paris, 1784. 



FRENCH TEAVELLEK8 AND WRITEKS. 91 

improve the advantages of such an experience. He found on 
his beautiful farm and among his kindly neighbors, the same 
attractions which Mrs. Grant remembered so fondly of her 
girlhood's home at Albany. Among the best of his letters 
are those extolling the pleasures and feelings of a farmer's 
life in a new country, and those descriptive of Nantucket, 
Martha's Vineyard, and Charleston, the notice of Bartrara the 
naturalist, and the account of the Humming Bird. Nor was 
this the author's only contribution to the literature of Ameri- 
can travel. In 1801, the fruit of his leisure after his final 
return to Normandy, appeared in the shape of a woi*k in the 
publication of which he indulged in a curious literary o'^se. 
It was entitled " Voyage dans la haute Pennsylvania et dans 
I'Etat de New York, par un Merabre Adoptif de la nation 
Oneida, traduit par I'Auteur des Lettres d'un Cultivateur 
Americain." It needed not this association of his first popu- 
lar venture with this ncAV book of travels in the same coun- 
try, to pierce the thin disguise whereby he announced the 
latter as printed from MSS. found in a wreck on the Elbe ; 
for the author enjoyed the eclat of success in the Paris salons^ 
while elsewhere his kindliness and wisdom made him a great 
favorite. These two works have the merit and the interest 
of being more deliberate literary productions than any that 
preceded them. There is a freshness and an ardor in the 
tone, which is often magnetic ; and in the material, a curious 
mixture of statistics and romance, matter of fact and senti- 
ment, reminding the reader at one moment of Marmontel, and 
at another of Adam Smith; for it deals about equally in sto- 
ries and economical details : many of the most remarkable 
Indian massacres and border adventures, since wrought into 
history, dramas, and novels, are narrated in these volumes 
fresh from current tradition,s or recent knowledge. The 
author wa& on intimate terms with the savages, and had been 
made an honorary member of the Oneida tribe. He gives a 
clear and probably, at the time, a novel account of the differ- 
ent States, their productions, condition, &c. 

Keenly appreciating the relation of landed property to citi- 



92 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

zenship, exulting in the independence of an agricultural life in 
a free country, and alive to all the duties and delights of 
domestic seclusion, his letters breathe a wise and grateful 
sense of the privileges he enjoys as an American farmer : 

" The instant I enter on my own land," he writes, " the bright 
idea of property, of exclusive right, of independence, exalts my mind. 
Precious soil, I say to myself, by what singular custom of law is it 
that thou wast made to constitute the riches of the freeholder? What 
should we American farmers be without the distinct possession of 
that soil? It feeds, it clothes us ; from it we draw our great exuber- 
ancy, our best meat, our richest drink — the very honey of our bees 
comes from this privileged spot. No wonder we should thus cherish its 
possession — no wonder that so many Europeans, who have never been 
able to say that such a portion of land was theirs, cross the Atlantic 
to realize that happiness. This formerly rude soil has been converted 
by my father into a pleasant farm, and in return it has established all 
our rights ; on it is founded our rank, our freedom, our power as 
citizens, our importance as inhabitants of such a district. These 
images, I must confess, I always behold with pleasure, and extend 
them as far as my imagination can reach ; for this is what may be 
called the true and only philosophy of the American farmer. Often 
when I j)lough my low ground, I place my little boy on a chair 
which sci'ews to the beam of the plough ; its motion and that of the 
horses please him ; he is perfectly happy, and begins to chat. As I 
lean over the handle, various are the thoughts which crowd into my 
mind. I am now doing for him, I say, what my father formerly did 
for me : may God enable him to live, that he may perform the same 
operations for the same purposes, when I am worn out and old. I 
release his mother of some trouble while I have him with me ; the 
odoriferous furrow exhilarates his spirits and seems to do the child a 
great deal of good, for he looks more blooming since I have adopted 
the practice : can more pleasure, more dignity be added to that pri- 
mary occupation ? The father, thus ploughing with his child and to 
feed his family, is inferior only to the emperor of China, ploughing 
as an example to his kingdom." 

Very loving and observant are his comments on the aspect, 
habits, and notes of birds ; they remind us of the spirit with- 
out the science of our endeared ornithologists, Audubon and 
Wilson. " I generally rise from bed," writes Crevecoeur, 
" about that indistinct interval, which, properly speaking, is 



FRENCH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 93 

neither night nor day ; for this is the moment of the most 
universal vocal choir. Who can listen immoved to the sweet 
love tales of our robins, told from tree to tree ; or to the shrill 
catbird ? The sublime accents of the thrush from on high, 
always retard my steps that I may listen to the delicious 
music." A long discussion with Dr. Franklin during their 
memorable journey in 1787, as to the origm of the aboriginal 
tribes and the mounds of the "West, which of late years have 
so interested ethnologists, is reported at length by this assidu- 
ous writer ; we thence learn that this new and extended 
interest was foreseen by the venerable philosopher, who re- 
marked to his companion : " When the population of the 
United States shall have spread over every part of that vast 
and beautiful region, our posterity, aided by new discoveries, 
may then, pei-haps, form more satisfactory conjectures." 

The religion and politics of the country are defined in 
these epistles. The Quakers, the weather, the aspect of the 
land, excursions, speculations, anecdotes, and poetical epi- 
sodes are the versatile subjects of his chronicle : several old- 
fashioned engraved illustrations give a quaint charm to the 
earlier editions ; domestic Jetes, majllle Fanny ^ and the trans- 
planting of a sassafras tree, alternate in the record with re- 
flections on the war of the Revolution, the " Histoire de Rachel 
Bird," and"La Pere Infortune !" There is a naive ardor and 
the genial egotism of a Gallic raconteur and philosopher, in 
the work — which survives the want of novelty in its econom- 
ical details and lo-cal descriptions. 

During Crevecoeur's visit to Normandy, five American 
sailors were shipwi*ecked on that coast, and he befriended 
them in their great need and peril, with a humane zeal that did 
credit to his benevolent heart. A gentleman of Boston in 
New England was so impressed with this kindness to his 
unfortunate countrymen, that, hearing of the destruction of 
the generous Frenchman's homestead far away, he made 
a long and hazardous journey in search of the deserted chil- 
dren, discovered, and clievished them till the father's arrival 
enabled him to restore them in health and safety. The ardent 



94 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

style of Crevecoeur's writings, and that tendency to exaggera- 
tion incident to his temperament, caused his books to be criti- 
cized with some severity as incorrect, highy colored, and 
prolix ; yet the vital charm and ingenuous sentiment of the 
enthusiast, combined with his tact as a raconteur^ and his love 
of nature and freedom, made these now neglected works pop- 
ular at the time and long subsequent to their original publi- 
cation. 

One of the most striking instances of the historical value 
of authentic and detailed records of travel, is the use which 
philosophical annalists, like De Tocqueville, have made of 
Arthur Young's observations in France. This intelligent and 
enthusiastic agricultural writer chronicled, as a tourist, the 
practical workings of the old regime in regard to the peasant- 
ry and rural districts, so as to demonstrate the vital necessity 
of a revolution on economical and social principles alone. A 
disciple of this writer, whose integrity and patriotism as well* 
as painstaking research make up in no small degree for his 
limited scientific knowledge and want of originality, prepared 
a large and well-considered work from a careful survey of the 
American States and their statistics in 1795. The Duke de 
La Rochefoucault-Liancourt commanded at Rouen, when the 
Constituent Assembly, of which he was a member, dissolved ; 
subsequently he passed many months in England, and then 
visited this country. His " Voyage dans les Etats TJnis," and 
his efficiency in establishing the use of vaccination in France, 
cause him to be remembered as a man of letters and benevo- 
lence ; he reached a venerable age, and won the highest re- 
spect, although long subject to the unjust aspersions of parti- 
san opponents whom his liberal nature failed to conciliate. 
There is little of novel information to an American reader in 
his voluminous work, except the record of local features and 
social fticts, which are now altogether things of the past ; yet 
the fairness and minute knowledge displayed, account for the 
value and interest attached to this work for many years after 
its appearance. It is evident that the Duke de La Rochefou- 
caxilt travelled as much to beguile himself of the ennui of 



FKENCH TEAVELLERS AND WKITEKS, 95 

exile and the disappointments of a baffled patriot, as on 
account of his inquiring turn of mind. He occupied himself 
chiefly with economical investigations, especially those con- 
nected with agriculture ; the process whereby vast swamps 
and forests were gradually reduced to tilled and habitable 
domains, interested him in all its stages and results. He 
describes each town, port, and region with care and candor ; 
and it is a peculiarity of his Travels that they contain many 
elaboi-ate accounts of certain farms and estates in difierent 
sections, whence we derive a very accurate notion of the 
methods and the resources of rural life in America soon after 
the Revolution. The Duke was a philosophical traveller, con- 
tent to journey on horseback, making himself as much at home 
with the laborer at th'e wayside as with the gentleman of the 
manor ; and seeking information with frankness and patience 
wherever and however it could be properly acquired. The 
lakes, bays, roads, the markets, manufactures, and seats he 
examines, in a business-like way ; complains of all crude 
arrangements, and bears the hardships then inseparable from 
travel here, like a soldier. Indians and rattlesnakes, corn and 
tobacco, the Hessian fly, pines, maples, negroes, rice planta- 
tions, orchards, aU the traits of rural economy and indigenous 
life, are duly registered and S2:)eculated upon. 

He visited, with evident satisfaction, the* battle grounds 
of the Revolution, and complacently dwells on Yorktown, 
the grave of Ternay at Newport, and the grateful estimation 
in which Lafayette was held. He seems to have well appre- 
ciated our leading men in public life and society ; Jefierson, 
Marshall, Jay, Hamilton, Adams, and Burr figure in his polit- 
ical tableaux, and he was the guest of General Knox, in Maine. 
He sums up the character of the Virginians as a people noted 
for dissipation, hospitality, and attachment to the Union ; of 
the special characteristics of the different States he was singu- 
larly cognizant ; and notes the slow adoption of vaccination, 
the adaptation of soils, and the existence of wild hemp on the 
shores of Ontario. 

Apart from the specific information contained in his 



96 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

" Voyage dans les Etats Unis d'Amerique," the Paris edition 
of which, printed in 1800, consists of eight volumes, 8vo,, 
there is little to attract the reader of warm sympathies or 
decided tastes. An English translation was published in 
quarto.* Although the work is the chief source of the Duke 
de La Rochefoucault's literary reputation, it is justly char- 
acterized, by an intelligent French critic, as a froide compila- 
tion, sans imagination et sans Vesprit (Tartiste. Both this 
writer, Chastellux, and other of their coimtrymen, gave satis- 
factory facts in regard to American military and political 
leaders, who can be most fairly estimated by competent for- 
eign critics : the former describes Stirling, and the latter 
Simcoe, Knox, and others. 

The Duke sums up, in the last chapter of his voluminous 
work, his impressions and convictions : like Brissot, he 
praises the Quakers for their civic virtues ; he notes what he 
calls the " prejudice " among the men against " domestic ser- 
vitude," a feeling in which the women then did not share ; 
of the freedom of action accorded the latter, he speaks with 
a Frenchman's national surprise, and adds that, when married, 
" they love their husband because he is their husband ; " he 
expatiates on the need of a more thorough educational sys- 
tem ; physically, however, he thinks the Americans had the 
advantage of Europeans in their habits of sporting and use 
of the rifle, and deems the liberty enjoyed by children the 
best method of teaching them self-reliance ; he describes the 
prevalent manners as essentially the same as those which exist 
in the provincial towns of England ; he praises the hospitality 
and benevolence of the people ; and says that drunkenness is 
" their most common vice," and " the desire of riches their 
ruling passion ; " " the traits of character common to all," he 
adds, " are ardor for enterprise, courage, greediness, and an 
advantageous opinion of themselves." Such are some of the 
opinions formed by this noble but somewhat prosaic traveller 

* " Liancourt's (Duke de La Rochefoucault) Travels through the United 
States, the Country of the Iroquois, &c., inthe years 1795, '96 and '97," 2 vols. 
4to., large folding maps, London, 1799. 



FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 97 

immediately after the Revolutionary Avar, when, as he ob- 
serves, the Americans " having for the most part made their 
fortunes by their o^vI^ industry, labor had not become repug- 
nant to them." He ends his work with the most benign 
wishes for the prosperity and integrity of the nation. 

That gifted and solitary pioneer of American fiction, 
Charles Brockden Brown, among his numerous and ill- 
rewarded but most creditable literary labors, made a transla- 
tion of Yolney's once noted book on America.* The career 
and the character of this writer must be understood in order to 
estimate aright his writings, and especially those that belong to 
the sphere of political and social speculation. Born in one of 
the provinces of France, just before the commencement of that 
memorable chaos of thought and action which ushered in the 
Revolution, of a studious and independent habit, he eai'ly 
manifested that boldness of aim and originality of convic- 
tion which mai'ked the adventurous and the philosophic men 
of his day. Changing his name, and accustoming himself to 
hardships, he aspired to an individuality of life and a free- 
dom from conventionalities, somewhat akin to the motive 
that made Byron a wanderer and Lady Stanhope a contented 
sqjom-ner in the desert. The passion for travel early pos- 
sessed him, and he equipped himself therefor by adopting a 
stoical regime, and acquiring the historical and philological 
knowledge so essential to satisfactory observation in foreign 
countries. An invalid from birth, his sequestered habits and 
sensitive temper gave a misanthropic tinge to his disposition, 
while his limited means induced a remarkable frugality ; the 
result of which circumstances and traits was to make Volney 
a morbid man, but a speculative thinker and a social non- 
conformist. Like Bentham and Godwin, but with less geni- 
ality, he professed to disdain the tyranny of custom, and to 
seei the good of humanity and the truth of life, in the neg- 
lected and superseded elements of society, so hopelessly 

* "View of the Soil and Climate of the United States of America," trans- 
lated by Charles Brockden Brown, with maps and plates, 8vo., Philadelphia, 
1804. 

5 



98 AMERICA AJSTD HEK COMMENTATOKS. 

overlaid by blind habit and unreasoning acquiescence. Like 
all Frenchmen, in carrying out this programme as a written 
theory, he is rhetorical, and, in practice, more or less gro- 
tesque ; yet with enough of ability and original method to 
excite the curious, and suggest new ideas to less adventurous 
minds, however more soimd judginent and holier faith might 
repudiate his principles. Professedly a social reformer, and 
at war with the life and law around him, he, like so many 
other civilized malcontents, turned ardently to the East. 

A Breton and a peer of France, there is much in Volney 
to remind xis of Chateaubriand — the same passion for knowl- 
edge, love of travel, political enthusiasm, romantic egotism, 
vague and a aunted sentiment ; but there the parallel ends : 
for Chateaubriand's conservatism, social relations, and opin- 
ions, literary, political, and religious, separate him widely 
from Yolney, although their experience of vicissitude was 
similar. The genius of the author of Atala was pervasive, 
and is still influential and endeared ; while the writings of 
Volney are comparatively neglected. He was born in 1V55, 
and known, in youth, as Constantino Francois Count de 
ChassebcEuf — a name he not imwisely discarded when seek- 
ing the honors of authorshij). After his early education was 
completed, he converted his little patrimony into money, and 
travelled through Egypt and Syria, lived for months in the 
Maronite convent on Mount Lebanon, to acquire the Oriental 
languages, studied Arabic with the Druses, and sojourned in 
an Arab tent. Not the least remarkable fact of his three 
years of Eastern life, was that the sum of a thousand dollars 
defrayed the entire expense thereof — a result he attributes to 
his simple habits and hardihood, and his facile self-adaptation 
to the modes of life prevalent among those with whom he 
became domesticated. 

Volney's Travels in the East, based, as they were, on such 
unusual opportunities for observation, and written con amore^ 
as indicative of his opinions not less than his adventures, 
proved eminently successful, and drew attention to his claims 
as a scholar and thinker, and indirectly led to his appoint- 



FKENCII TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 99 

ment to an official station in Corsica, where he knew Bona- 
parte. Vohiey's ambition, liowever, seems to have originally 
tended to philosophical eminence rather than political distinc- 
tion. He was a profound hater of tyranny, and too inde- 
pendent and fastidious, as well as physically sensitive, to 
engage heartily in the struggles of party : he loved rather to 
speculate freely, and to wander, observe,, theorize, protest, 
and jjortray. Having established himself at Auteuil, near 
Paris, he became intimate with the literary men of the day, 
embraced the Liberal cause, and, as deputy from Anjou, in 
1789, proved an effective speaker. In 1791 he published 
" Les Riiines ; or, Meditations on the Revolutions of Em- 
pires " — the work that embodies at once his scepticism, senti- 
ment, historical speculations, and humanitarian ideas ; a work 
whose rhetoric and vaguely sad but eloquent tone Avon the 
imaginative as it repelled the religious. It was regarded as 
among the most dangerous of the many sceptical works of 
the day. The remarks on sects and religion excited Joseph 
Priestley to a vigorous protest. Volney declined the pro- 
posed controversy ; and there is something absurd to the 
English reader (who, if candid and intelligent, must know 
that a more honest and humane philosopher than Priestley 
never lived) in the assertion of the author's biographer, that 
the malevolence of a rival writer's jealousy, and not a love 
of truth, led to the original challenge. Volney was a radi- 
cal, and a victim of the Revolution. He accompanied Poz- 
zo di Borgo to Corsica, and endeavored to establish sugar 
cultivation there. Failing therein, he returned to Paris, to 
suffer persecution in the reign of terror ; and, on the fall of 
Robespierre, regained his liberty, after ten months' imprison- 
ment. In 1794 he was appointed professor of history in the 
Normal School, on the philosophy of which subject he ably 
lectured; and, in 1795, embarked at Havre, " with that dis- 
gust and indifference which the sight and experience of injus- 
tice and persecution imj^art," intending to settle in the United 
States. He tells us that the prospect that allured him thither 
was certain facts in regafd to that coxmtry wherein he con- 



100 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

sidered it surpassed altogether the rest of the civilized world 
as a home for the man of indei:)endent mind, hrave individu- 
ality, enter^^rise, and misfortune. These were, first, an 
immense territory to be peopled ; second, the facility of 
acquiring landed jsroperty ; and third, personal freedom. 
Although Volney found these privileges extant and estab- 
lished, neither his antecedents nor his disposition were auspi- 
cious to their realization. In his famous Treatise, he had 
traced the fall of empires, and speculated on the origin of 
government and laws ; the prejudices and errors of mankind 
he considers the cause of social evil, and advocates a return 
to normal principles, recognizing, however, no basis of faith 
as the foundation of social prosperity. Montesquieu and 
Montaigne, Rousseau and Godwin, have made the essential 
truths of social reform patent ; the question of their prac- 
tical organization remains an imsolved problem, except as 
regards individual fealty." Combe and Spurzheim showed 
that the violation of the natural laws was the root of human 
misery. Buckle illustrates the historical influence of super- 
stition upon society ; and Emerson throws aphoristic shells at 
fortified popular errors, or what he considers such, that ex- 
plode and sparkle, but fail to destroy : all and each of these 
and other kindred theorists expose evil far better than they 
propose good ; repudiate, but do not create ; and this vital 
defect underlies the philosophy of Volney, which is desti- 
tute of the conservate elements of more benign and recep- 
tive minds. It eloquently depicts wrong, ingeniously ac- 
counts for error, but offers no positive conviction or practical 
ameliorations whereon the social edifice can firmly rise in new 
and more grand proportions.* His Utopian anticipations of 
a political millenniimi in America were disaj^pointed ; and per- 

* " The conclusion to whicli Volney makes his mterlocutor come, is, that 
nothing can be true, nothing can be a ground of peace and union which is 
not visible to the senses. Truth is in conformity with sensations. The book 
is interesting as a work of art ; but its analysis of Christianity is so shocking 
that its absurdity alone prevents its becoming dangerous." — CinticalHistory 
of Free Thought, by A. S. Farrar, M. A. 



FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 101 

sonal resentment, imprudence, and egoti&m aggravated this 
result. His visit was abruptly closed ; and the record 
thereof became, for these reasons, incomplete, and Avarped 
by prejudice, yet not without special merit, and a peculiar 
interest and value. 

Volney's difficulties as an emigrant were complicated 
by political excitement incident to the troubles in France, the 
arrogant encroachments of Genet, and the partisan strife 
thus engendered. In the words of his biographer, " the epi- 
demic animosity against the French breaking out, compelled 
him to withdraw " — a course rendered more imperative, ac- 
cording to the same authority, " by the attacks of a person 
who was then all powerful." He was charged with being 
a secret agent of his Government, CQnsi:)iring to^ deliver 
Louisiana to the Directory ; and we are gravely told that 
" the world would be astonished at the animosity of John 
Adams," who, Volney declares, " had no motive but the 
rancor of an author, on account of ray opinion of his book on 
the Constitution of the United States." In these state- 
ments, those cognizant of the attempted interference of for- 
eigners, sustained by party zeal, and the just indignation and 
firm conduct of "Washington, at that memorable crisis, can 
easily understand why Volney found it expedient to relin- 
quish his purpose to settle in America. On returning to 
France, he was a senator during the consulship of Napoleon ; 
and, in 1814, a member of the Chamber of Peers. He died 
in Paris in 1820. The following year his works were col- 
lected and published in eight handsome volumes. " I am of 
opinion," he writes, " that Tiavcls belong to history, and not 
to romance. I have, therefore, not described countries as 
more beautiful than they appeared to me ; I have not repre- 
sented their inhabitants more virtuous nor more wicked than 
I have found them." 

Volney made the reflections, historic and speculative, in- 
duced by the contemplations of " solitary ruins, holy sepul- 
chres, and silent walls," the nucleus and inspiration for the 
utterance of his theories of life and man. He apostrophizes 



102 AMERICA AND HEK COIVOIENTATOKS. 

them as "witnesses of the past, aod evokes phantoms of 
buried empires to attest the causes of their decline, and the 
means and method of human regeneration. There is a nov- 
elty in this manner of treating great questions ; and this, 
combined with rhetorical language, a philosophical tone, and 
no inconsiderable knowledge, explains the interest his work 
excited. Stripped of glowing epithets and conventional 
terms, there is, however, little originality in his deductions, 
and much sophistry in his reasonings. Like Rousseau, he 
reverts to the primitive wants and rights of humanity ; like 
Godwin, he advocates a return to the normal principles of 
political justice as the only legitimate basis of social organ- 
ization ; and, like the enthusiasts of the first French Revolu- 
tion, he claims liberty and equality for man as the only true 
conditions of progress ; while he ascribes to ignorance and 
cupidity the evils of his lot and the fall of nations. In 
common, however, with so many speculative reformers of 
that and subsequent periods, his practical suggestions are 
altogether disproportioned to his eloquent protest ; and his 
estimate of Christianity fails to recognize its inherent author- 
ity as verified by the highest and most pure moral intuitions, 
and cpnfirmed by the absolute evidence manifest in the 
character, influence, and truths made patent and pervasive by 
its Founder. As a traveller, Volney wrote Avith remarkable 
intelligence ; as a student of history, his expositions were 
often comprehensive and original ; as a moralist, he grasped 
the rationale of natural laws and duties ; and as a linguist, 
his attainments were remarkable. There is moi'e pique than 
candor in his reply to Priestley's letter controverting his 
atheistical views. His labors as professor in the Normal 
School of Paris, as administrator in Corsica, as a political 
representative, and an economical writer, indicate rare assi- 
duity, insight, and progressive zeal. His biographer claims 
that from his " earliest youth he devoted himself to the 
search after truth ; " extols " the accuracy of his views and 
the justness of his observations" — his moral courage, and 
the originality of his system " of applying to the study of 



FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 103 

the idioms of Asia a part of the gTamraatical notions we pos- 
sess concerning the languages of Europe " — and of liis doctrine 
" that a state is so much the more powerful as it includes a 
greater number of proprietors — that is, a greater division of 
property." Erudite, austere, a lover of freedom, and a 
seeker for truth, whatever might be the speculative tenden- 
cies of Volney, his information and his philosophic aspira- 
tions won him friends and honor at home and abroad ; but 
his sceptical generalizations repel as much as his adventurous 
indi\'iduality attracts. His visit to this country is thus 
alluded to by his biographer : " Disgusted with the scenes 
he had witnessed in his native land, he felt that passion re- 
vive within him, which, in his yoiith, had led him to visit 
Africa and Asia. Then, in the prime of life, he joyfully bade 
adieu to a land where peace and plenty reigned, to travel 
among barbarians ; now, in mature years, but dismayed at 
the spectacle of injustice and persecutions, it was with diffi- 
dence, as we learn from himself, that he went to implore 
from a free people an asylum for a sincere friend of that lib- 
erty that had been so profaned." 

Although imbittered by personal difficulties and acrimo- 
nious controversy, the sojourn of Volney in the United 
States was not given to superficial observation, but to scien- 
tific inquiry. In this respect, his example was worthy of a 
philosopher ; and it is a characteristic evidence of his assidu- 
ity, that he improved his acquaintance with the famous Miami 
chief. Little Turtle, when the latter visited Philadelphia, in 
1797, on treaty business, to make a vocabulary of the lan- 
guage of that aboriginal tribe. 

His work * on this country, published in England with 
additions, is less rhetorical, on account of the subjects dis- 
cussed, than his other writings ; singularly devoid of per- 
sonal anecdote, and, but for the description of Niagara Falls, 
and the bite of a rattlesnake, comparatively vmpicturesque 

* Volney's (C. F.) " View of the Climate and Soil of the United States, 
&c., and Vocabulary of the Miami Language," 8vo, maps and plates, London, 
1804. 



104 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

and unaclventurous as a narrative. It anticipates somewhat 
the later labors of savans and economists, and sets forth with 
acumen many of the physical featm-es, resources, and charac- 
teristics of the coimtry. It possesses an extrinsic interest 
quite unique, from the antecedents and literary reputation 
of the author ; and it is in the latter character that he is 
remembered, as identified with the progress of mfidelity — 
but original, philosophic, and liberal. Catharine of Kussia 
recognized his merit ; Holbach introduced him to Franklin ; 
and he solaced his wounded pride, after leaving this country, 
by reverting to the consideration manifested for him by 
Washington. He is the first foreign writer of eminence who 
made the climate of North America a subject of study and 
scientific report ; and his views and facts have been and are 
still often referred to as authoritative, notwithstanding their 
limited application. His description of the action and influ- 
ence of winds is highly picturesque, and his observations on 
rain and electricity noteworthy. 

When Volney, in his preface, advises Frenchmen not to 
emigrate to America, because the laws, language, and man- 
ners are uncongenial, though better adapted to the English, 
Scotch, and Dutch, he adds : " I say with regret, my experi- 
ence did not lead me to find ces disj^ositions fraternelles I 
had looked for." The political exigencies at the time of his 
visit, and personal . disappointment, evidently warped the 
philosopher's candid judgment ; and he confesses feeling 
obliged thereby to give scientific rather than social commen- 
taries on America. His analysis and description of the soil 
and climate are brief. He begins with the geographical 
situation, discusses the marine, sandy, calcareous, granite, 
mountain, and other regions, the Atlantic coast, and the Mis- 
sissipi basin. Subsequent geological researches, the progress 
of meteorological and ethnological science since his day, com- 
bine to render Volney's tableaux more curious than satisfac- 
tory or complete. He has specific remarks on New Hamp- 
shire, based on a then current history of that State by Samuel 
Williams, many facts and speculations in regard to the 



FRENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WEITEES. 105 

aborigines, and interesting notes respecting tlie French colo- 
nists. 

Volney's visit was long remembered by our older citi- 
zens. A Knickerbocker reminiscent, in describing the local 
associations of " Richmond Hill," in the city of New York — 
a domain now marked by the junction of Varick and Van- 
dam streets — speaks of the Lispenard meadows once flanking 
the spot, and of the adjacent forest trees, where the echo of 
the sportsman's gun often resounded ; and, in allusion to the 
mansion itself, notes the curioxis fact that the first opera 
house was built upon its site ; that the elder Adams resided 
there when Congress met in New York ; and that the dwell- 
ing became the home of the notorious Aaron Burr, among 
whose guests he mentions Volney, " whose portly form gave 
outward tokens of his tremendous vitality, while the Syrian 
traveller descanted on theogony, the races of the red men, 
and Niagara." * 

We have a curious glimpse of Volney during his tour in 
this country, from another venerable remmiscent : " Some 
thirty or more years ago, at the close of a summer's day, a 
stranger entered Warrentown. He was alone and on foot, 
and his appearance was anything but prepossessing ; his gar- 
ments coarse and dust-covered, like an individual in the hum- 
bler walks. From a cane resting across his shoulder was sus- 
pended a handkerchief containing his clothing. Stopping in 
front of Turner's tavern, he took from his hat a paper, and 
handed it to a gentleman standing on the steps. It read as 
follows : ' The celebrated historian and naturalist, Volney, 
needs no recommendation from G. Washington.' " 

It is said that the idea of his celebrated work on the 
Ruins of Empires was first suggested in the cabinet of 
Franklin. Herein he elaborately proclaims and precisely 
defines the law of decay as the condition of humanity in her 
most magnificent s'ocial development ; and states, with the 
eloquence of scientific logic, the right, necessity, and duty of 

* " Old New York," by Dr. Francis. 
5* 



106 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOKS. 

toleration — then a doctrine but casually recognized as a 
philosojjhical necessity. It was objected to tliis work, in 
addition to its sceptical generalization, that, in describing 
sects, he misrepresented their ci'eed and practice. A merit, 
however, claimed for Volney, and with reason, is his freedom 
from egotism when writing as a philosopher. There is a 
remarkable absence of personal anecdote and adventures both 
in his work on the East and his American travels. One of 
his biographers claims that the topographical descriptions in 
the latter are written in a masterly style, and that his re- 
marks on the course and currents of the winds denote origi- 
nal insight and observation. The same Avriter, however, 
states that his character, which was naturally sei'ious, became 
morose as he advanced in life. 

It was his original purpose to treat of America as a 
political essayist and social philosopher. He intended to 
trace " the stock, the history, language, laws, and customs ; 
to expose the error of the romantic colonists, who gave tlie 
name of a virgin j^eople to their descendants — a combmation 
of the inhabitants of old Em-ope — Dutch, Germans, Span- 
iards, and English from three kingdoms ; to indicate the 
differences of opinions and of interests which divide the New 
England and Southern country — tlie region of the Atlantic 
and that of the Mississippi ; to define republicanism and 
federalism," &c. A profound admirer of the liberty of the 
press and of opinion, he would have explained the antag- 
onism between the followers of Adams and of Jefierson. In 
a word, the scope of his work, as at first projected, resem- 
bled that so ably achieved by his more consistent and judi- 
cious coiuitryman, De Tocqueville. Instead of this, Volney 
wrote in a scientific vein. He treats of the Avinds, tempera- 
ture, qualities of soil, local diseases ; and Avrites as a natural- 
ist and physiologist, instead of making the great theme 
subservient to his political theories. There is much con- 
densed knowledge and remarkable scientific description ; 
interesting accounts of Florida, the French colony on the 
Scioto, and others in Canada, with curious remarks on the 



FRENCH TKAVELLEKS AND WEFTERS. 107 

aborigines. The style and thought as well as scope of the 
work, although thus partial in its design, are superior to most 
of those which preceded it. 

Another Frenchman, who enjoyed considerable literary 
renown in his day, was instrumental, though not in the 
character of a traveller, in making America and her political 
claims known in Euroj^e. Born at St. Geniez, Guienne, in 
1711, and dying at Paris in 1796, the life of the Abbe Ray- 
nal includes a period fraught with extreme vicissitudes of 
government and religion, whereof he largely partook in opin- 
ion and fortune. Bred a Jesuit, he went to Paris, and, from 
some elocutionary defects, failed as a preacher at St. Sulpice, 
became intimate with Voltaire, Diderot, and D'Alembert, 
and abandoned theology for philosophy. Familiar with the 
writings of Bayle, Montaigne, and Rousseau, he became an 
ardent liberal and active litterateur / first compiling memoirs 
of Ninon de L'Enclos, then writing " L'Histoire du Stathou- 
derat" — a branch of the noble theme since so memorably 
unfolded by our countryman Motley ; the " Histoire du Parle- 
ment d'Angleterre ; " articles in the " Cyclopaedia ; " literary 
anecdotes, &c. But the work which for a time gave him 
most celebrity, was written in conjunction with Diderot — 
" Histoire philosophique et politique des Etablissements et du 
commerce des Europeens dans les Indes." The first edition 
appeared in 1770. In the second, ten years after, his direct 
attacks upon the existing government and religion caused the 
work to be prohibited, and its author condemned to imprison- 
ment ; which latter penalty he escaped by flight. In 1781 
appeared his " Tableau et Revolutions des Colonies Anglaises 
dans I'Amerique Septentrionale," * whose many errors of fact 
were indicated in a pamphlet by Tom Paine. Elected a 
deputy, his renunciation of some of his obnoxious opinions 
failed to conciliate his adversaries ; and, despoiled by the 
Revolution, he died in poverty, at the age of eighty-four. 
Incorrect and desultory as are the Abbe Raynal's writings, 

*"The Abbe Raynal on the Revolution in America," 12mo., Dublin, 
1781. 



108 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

and neglected as they now are, his advocacy of the American 
cause, and description of the coimtry, drawn apj)arently from 
inadequate yet sometimes authentic sources, on accoimt of a 
certain philosoj^hical tone and agreeability of style, were for 
some years read and admired. As we recur to them in the 
ninth volume of the latest edition of his chief work, wherein 
they are now included, we obtain a vivid idea of the kind of 
research and rhetoric then in vogue, and can imagine how to 
foreign minds must then have appeared the problem of our 
nascent civilization. 

The Abbe's biographer claims that he was personally very 
agreeable, and possessed of a fine figure ; that the vivacious 
discussions and literary fellowship of the Paris salons en- 
livened and enlarged the acquisitions of this eleve of the 
cloister who " succeeded in the world," and, though he did 
not imderstand the science of politics, and often contradicted 
himself, was, notwithstanding, an ardent and capable de- 
fender of human rights, and a true lover of his race. It is a 
curious fact, that he was a warm admirer and eloquent eulo- 
gist of Sterne's fair friend, Eliza Draper ; and a more intei*- 
esting one, that he was among the very earliest to protest 
against the cruelties then practised against the negro race. 
He draws a parallel, at the close of his history, between the 
actual results of European conquests in America, and their 
imagined benefits. The new empire multiplied metals, and 
made a grand movement in the world ; but, says the Abbe, 
" le mouvement ne'st pas le bonheur," and the Western em- 
pire " donne naissance au plus infame, au plus atroce de tous 
les commerces, celui des esclaves." Chiefly occupied with 
the West India Islands, what is said of North America is dis- 
cursive. He describes the process of civilization in brief ; the 
Puritan, Dutch, and Catholic leaders ; Penn, and Lord Balti- 
more ; the settlement of Georgia and Carolina ; the trees, 
grain, birds, tobacco, and other indigenous products ; notes 
the imported domestic animals, and the exported wood and 
metals ; discusses the probable success of silk and vine cul- 
ture in the southern and middle regions, and gives statistics 



FEENCH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITEES. 109 

of the population, and partial accounts of the laws, currency, 
municipal and colonial systems, &c., of the several States ; 
and then, in outlme, describes the Revolution. A love of 
freedom, and a speculative hardihood and interest in human 
progress and prosperity, imbue his narratives and reasonings, 
though the former are often incorrect, and the latter inade- 
quate. 

According to the habit of French authors of those days, 
the Abbe occasionally turns from disquisition to oratory ; 
and it is amusing to read here and now the oracular counsel 
he gave our fathers : addressing the " peuples de I'Amerique 
Septentrionale," in 1781 : " Craignez," he says, " I'affluencede 
I'or qui apporte avec le luxe la corrujjtion des mceurs, le 
mepris des lois ; craignez une trop inegale rej^artition des 
richesses ; garantissez-vous de I'esprit de conquete ; cherchez 
I'aisance et la sante dans le travail, la prosperite dans la cul- 
ture des terres et les ateliers de Tindustrie, la force dans les 
bonnes moeurs et dans la vertu ; faites prosperer les sciences 
et les artes ; veillez a I'education de vos enfans ; n'etablissez 
aucune preference legale entre les cultes. Apres avoir vu 
dans le debut de cet ouvrage, en quel etat de misere et de 
tenebres etait I'Europe a la naissance de I'Amerique, voyons 
en quel etat le conquete d'un monde a conduit et pousse le 
monde conquerante." He laments the fanaticism of Massa- 
chusetts ; tells the story of Salem witchcraft, and the per- 
petuation in the New of the cruel laws of the Old World ; 
says epidemics like the small pox acquire new vii-ulence in 
America ; praises the Long Wharf of Boston, and compares 
the dwellings and furniture of that city to those of London. 



CHAPTER lY. 

FRENCH TRA TELLERS AND WRITERS CONTINUED. 

EOCHAMBEAU ; TAXLETKAND ; SEGUR ; CHATEAUBRIAND ; MICHATJX ; 
MUKAT ; BRILLAT-SAVARIN ; DE TOCQUEVILLE ; DE BEAUMONT ; 
AMPllRE, AND OTHERS ; LAFAYETTE ; FISCH ; DE GASPARIN ; 
OFFICERS; LABOULAYE, ETC. 

Some of the most pleasing and piquant descriptions of 
America, and life there, at the period of and subsequent to 
the Revolutionary War, are to be found in the memoirs and 
correspondence of French allies and emigres. In some in- 
stances, as we have seen in the case of Chastellux, Brissot, 
the Abbe Robin, and others, instead of an episode, our Gallic 
visitors have expanded their observations into separate vol- 
umes ; but even the casual mention of places and persons, 
character and customs that are interwoven in the biography 
and journals of some of the French officers, are noteworthy 
as illustrations of the times, especially in a social point of 
view. We find them in the memoirs of De Lauzun, De 
Segur, De Broglie, and other of the gallant beaux who made 
themselves so agreeable to the j^retty Quakers at Newport, 
where they were so long quartered ; and left, as in the case 
of Vosmeneul, traditions of wit, love, and dancing — the 
evanescent record whereof still survives in the initials cut on 
the little window panes of the gable-roofed houses with 
their diamond rings, and Avere long rehearsed by venerable 
ladies of Philadelphia and Boston. Among these incidental 
glimpses of America as her scenes and people impressed a 



FRENCH TEAVELLERS AND WRITERS. Ill 

noble militaire, are many passages in the Memoirs of Count 
Rochambeau, who is so prominently represented beside 
"Washington in the picture of the surrender of Yorktown, at 
Versailles. Born in 1'725, and soon distinguished as a sol- 
dier, in 1780 he was sent as the commander-general of six 
thousand troops, to assist our Revolutionary struggle. He 
landed at Newport, R. I., and acted in concert with Wash- 
ington against Clinton m ISTew York, and against ConiAvallis 
at Yorktown. On his return to Fi-ance, he was made mar- 
shal, and commander of the Army of the North, by Louis 
XVI. He was gradually superseded by more energetic 
officers, became the object of calumny to the journalists, and 
vindicated himself in a speech before the Assembly, who 
passed a decree approving his conduct. He retired to his 
estate at Vendome, i-esolved to abandon public affiiirs. He 
was arrested, and narrowly escaped death under Robespierre 
— like so many of his eminent countrymen who had become 
well known on this side of the ocean. In 1803 he was pre- 
sented to Bonaparte, who conferred on him the cross of the 
Legion of Honor. He died in 1807, and, two years after, 
his " Me'moires " were published. 

Count Rochambeau describes at length the military oper- 
ations of which he was a witness in America, and looks at 
the country, for the most part, with the eyes of a soldier. 
He repudiates all idea of writing in the character of a pro- 
fessed author, and both the style and substance of his auto- 
biography are those of a military memoir. Still he records 
many significant facts, geograi^hical and economical. He 
notes the agricultural resources of those parts of the covmtry 
he visited, describes the houses, ports, and climate, and 
gives an interesting account of Arnold's treason — first re- 
vealed to "Washington in connection with a journey under- 
taken by the latter to meet him ; and of many of the subse- 
quents events connected therewith he was a witness. But 
the most attractive feature of Rochambeau's American 
reminiscences is his cordial recognition of the popular mind 
and heart. He appreciated, better than many more super- 



112 AMEEICA AND HKR COMMENTATORS. 

ficial observers, the domestic discipline, the religious tolera- 
tion, and the genuine indei^endence of character which then 
formed our noble distinction in the view of liberal Europeans. 
He remarks the unequal interest in the war in different 
localities : "En distinguant d'abord les commergans des agri- 
coles, les habitudes des grandes villes maritimes de ceux de? 
petites villes ou des habitans de l'int6rieur, on ne doit paf- 
etre etonae que les commergans et ceux qui, dans ces ports, 
avaient une relation ou des int6rets directs avec le gouverne 
ment Anglais, aient t6moigne moins de zele j^our la revolu- 
tion que les agricoles." Boston was an exception; and the 
Northern States seconded the Revolution which the violence 
of the British and Hessians precipitated. The equal for- 
tunes of the North favored democracy, while the large pro- 
prietors of the South formed an aristocracy. He says of 
American women : " Les fiUes y sont libres jusqu'a leur 
mariage. Leur premiere question est de savoir si vous etes 
marie ; et, si vous I'etes, leur conversation tombe tout a plat." 
Sometimes in youth, though going to church w^ith parents, 
" elles n'aient pas encore fait choix d'une religion ; elles 
disent qu'elles seront de la religion de leur maris." They 
observe, he says, " une grande propriete." He describes a 
settlement " par mettre le feu a la foret (to clear). II seme 
en suite, entre les souches, toutes sortes de grains, qui crois- 
sant avec la plus grande abondance, sous une couche de 
feuilles, pourries et reduites en terreau vegetal forme pen- 
dant un tres-grand nombre d'annees. II batit son habitation 
avec les rameaux de ces arbres places Fun sur I'autre, soutenus 
par des 2:»iquets. Au bout de viugt ou trente ans, lorsqu'il 
est parvenu a desancher et a rendre la terre ameublie, il 
songe a construire ime maison plus propre " — and later one of 
brick ; " on y fait au moins quatre repas, interrompu par un 
travail modere, et le petit negre est coutmuellement occupe a 
defaire et a remettre le couvert. 

" Dans les grands villes," he adds, " le luxe a fait plus de 
progrcs. Le pays circonscrit sous le nom des Etats Unis, 
avec les arrondissemens qu'ont cedes les Anglais, par la paix 



FRENCH TRAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 113 

de 1783, pouvra comporter un jour plus de trente miUions 
d'habitans sans a gener." 

He recognizes the complete division of church and 
state in our democratic system : " Par ces precautions, la 
religion n'entra pour rien dans les deliberations politiques ; 
chacun professa son culte avec exactitude ; la sanctification 
du dimanche s'y observoit avec exactitude ; " and, like so 
many other sojourners of that period, he attests that "I'hos- 
pitalite est la vertu la plus generalement observee." 

An incident related by his companion, illustrates the 
popular respect for law : " At the moment of our quitting 
the camp," writes Count S6gur, " as M. de Rocharabeau 
was proceeding at the head of his columns, and surrounded 
by his brilliant staff, an American approached him, tapped 
him slightly on the shoulder, and, showing him a paper he 
held in his hand, said : ' In the name of the law I arrest you.' 
Several yoimg officers were indignant at this insult offered to 
their general ; but he restrained their impatience by a sign, 
smiled, and said to the American, ' Take me away with you, 
if you can.' ' No,' replied he ; ' I have done my duty, and 
your excellency may proceed on your march, if you wish to 
put justice at defiance. Some soldiers of the division of 
Soissonnais have cut down several ti'ees, and burnt them to 
light their fires. The owner o& them claims an indemnity, 
and has obtained a warrant against you, which I have come 
to execute.' " 

Rochambeau was much impressed with the state of reli- 
gion in America, and especially the voluntary deference to 
the clergy, coexistent with self-respect and self-reliance in 
matters of faith, so manifest at the era of the Revolution. 
" They reserve," he writes, " for tlie minister the first place 
at public banquets ; he invokes a blessing thereon ; but his 
prerogatives, as far as society is concerned, extend no far- 
ther ; and this position," he adds, obviously in view of cleri- 
cal corruption in Europe, " should lead naturally to simple 
and pure manners." 

Another anecdote, illustrative of the times and people, is 



114 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

related with much zest : " Je hasarde," he says, " d'inter- 
rompre ici I'attention du lecteur, jjar le recit d'une historiette 
qui ni laisse pas de caracteriser parfaiteinent les raoeurs des 
bons republicans du Connecticut." He then states that, 
bemg on his way to Hartford, to confer with Washington, 
and accompanied by the Count de Ternay, who was an in- 
valid, the carriage broke down, and his aide was sent to find 
a blacksmith to repair it. The only one in the vicinity, being 
ill with fever and ague, refused, and declared a hat full of 
guuieas would not induce him to imdertake the job ; but 
when the Count explained to the resolute Vulcan, that if his 
vehicle was not repaired, he could not keep his appointment 
with Washington, " I am at the public service. You shall 
have your carriage at six to-morrow morning," said the black- 
smith, " for you are good people." Such instances of disin- 
terested patriotism, and superiority to the blandishments of 
rank and money, among the mechanics and farmers, struck 
Rochambeaii and his companions as memorable evidences of 
the effect of free institutions and popular education upon 
national character. 

Another famous Frenchman, at a later period, received 
quite a different impression — finding in the isolated material- 
ism of American border life a hopeless dearth of sentiment 
and civilized enjoyment, wbich, in his view, though habitu- 
ated to the sight of starving millions and effeminate cour- 
tiers, more than counterbalanced the independence and pros- 
pective comfort of the masses thus bravely secured. When 
Talleyrand was a temporary exile in the United States, he 
visited a colony of his countrymen, and wrote thus of the 
American backwoodsman : " He is interested in nothing. 
Every sentimental idea is banished from him. Those 
branches so elegantly throuTi by nature — a fine foliage, a 
brilliant hue which marks one jiart of the forest, a deeper 
green which darkens another — all these are nothing in his 
eye. He has no recollections associated with anythmg around 
him. His only thought is the number of strokes which are 
necessary to level this or that tree. He has never planted ; 



FRENCH TEA\T:LLEES AND WKITEKS. 115 

he is a stranger to tlie pleasure of that process. Were he to 
plant a tree, it never could become an object of gratification 
to him, because he could not live to cut it down. He lives 
only to destroy. He is surrounded by destruction. He does 
not wateli tlie destiny of what he produces. He does not 
love the field where he has expended his labor, because his 
labor is merely fatigue, and has no pleasurable sentiment 
attached to it." 

Few men bom in the Eastern States, especially if they 
have ^^sited Europe, can fail to realize a certain forlorn re- 
moteness in the sensation experienced, when suiTounded by 
the sparsely inhabited woods and prairies, akin to what Talley- 
rand describes. The back country of the Upper Mississippi 
seems more oppressively lonely to such a traveller than the 
interior of Sicily. The want of that vital and vivid connec- 
tion between the past and present ; the painful sense of new- 
ness ; the savage triumph, as it were, of nature, hoAvever 
beautiful, over humanity, whose eager steps have only in- 
vaded, not ameliorated her domain — seem, for the moment, 
to leave us in desolate individuality and barren self-depend- 
ence. But the experience Talle}a-and compassionated was 
and is but a transition state — a brief overture to a future 
social prosperity, where sentiment as well as enterprise has 
ample verge. 

Count Segur, the French ambassador to Russia and Prus- 
sia, was born in 1753, and his first youth was educated under 
that chevalresque social luxury that marked the reign of Louis 
XV. Of noble birth, and commencing life as a courtier, he 
experienced to an unusual extent, the vicissitudes, the disci- 
pline, and the distinction incident to his age and country. 
He was an accomplished military officer and diplomatist, an 
author, a politician, a voyagein\ and a peer ; and, withal, 
seems to have been an amiable, liberal, and brave gentleman. 
He came to America in 1783, with despatches to Rocham- 
beau, to whom he was appointed aide, with the rank of 
colonel ; and, after various and provoking delays and priva- 



116 AMERICA AND HEK .COMMENTATOKS. 

tions, joined the French camp and his o^vn regiment on the 
Hudson Kiver. 

The circumstances of his landing were such as to predis- 
pose a less heroic and gracious nature to take an unfavorable 
view of the New World ; for battle, shipwreck, the loss of 
his effects, great discomfort, and a series of annoyances and 
mishaps attended him from the moment his battered ship ran 
agroixnd in the Delaware, within sight of the enemy's fleet, 
until he reached his commander's quarters, after a wearisome 
and exjiosed journey. Yet few of his gallant coimtrjonen 
looked upon the novelties of life, manners, and scenery 
around him with such partial and sympathetic eyes. Per- 
haps it was by virtue of contrast that the young courtier of 
Louis conceived a strong attachment for the Quakers of 
Philadelphia ; and this feeling received a fresh and fond 
impulse from the charms of the beautiful Polly Lawton, of 
Newport. 

The sight of the American forests inspired him ; and the 
independent character, jjrobity, and frugal contentment of 
the people was the constant theme of his admiration. " I 
experienced," he writes, " two opposite impressions — one 
produced by the spectacle of the beauties of a wild and sav- 
age nature, and the other by the fertility and variety of 
industrious cultivation of a civilized Avorld. Indigence and 
brutality were nowhere to be seen ; fertility, comfort, and 
kindness were everywhere to be found ; and every individual 
displayed the modest and tranquil pride of an independent 
man, who feels that he has nothing above him but the laws, 
and who is a stranger alike to the vanity, to the prejudices, 
and to the servility of European society. No useful profes- 
sion is ever ridiculed or despised. Indolence alone would be 
a subject of reproach." 

He was, at first, astonished to find men of all vocations 
with military titles. The " wild and savage " prospect 
aroimd West Point delighted him. He dmed with Wash- 
ington, and describes the toasts and the company with much 
zest. He enjoyed a week's furlough at Newport, and, -with 



FRENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WKITEES. 117 

his brothel' officers, gave a ball there. Quartered with a 
family at Providence, he learned to love the simplicity of 
domestic life in America. One of his general observations 
on the country has now a prophetic significance : 

" The only dangers which can menace, in the future, this happy 
republic, consisting in 1780 of three millions, and no,w (1825) num- 
bering more than ten millions of citizens, is the excessive wealth 
which is promised by its commerce, and the corrupting luxury which 
may follow it. Its Southern provinces should foresee and avoid an- 
other peril. In the South are to be found a very large class of poor 
whites, and another of enormously wealthy proprietors ; the fortunes 
of this latter class are created and sustained by the labor of a popu- 
lation of blacks, slaves, which mcreases largely every year, and who 
may and must be frequently driven to despair and revolt by the con- 
trast of their servitude with the entire liberty enjoyed by men of the 
same color in other States of the Union. In a Avord, this difference 
of manners and situation between the North and South ; does it not 
lead us to apprehend in times to come a separation which would en- 
feeble and perhaps break this happy confederation, which can pre- 
serve its power only in being fii-mly locked and united together? 
Such was the sad thought which ended my last conversation with 
the Chevalier de Chastellux, on the eve of his departure from the 
army." * 

Like so many other visitors, he was struck with the re- 
semblance of Boston to an English town, with the beauty 
of its women, and with the preaching of Dr. Cooper. In a 
letter written on embarking for the West Indies, he ex- 
presses keen regret at leaving America, dwells wdth much 
feeling upon the kindness he had received and the opportuni- 
ties he had enjoyed there, and descants upon the purity of 
manners, equality of condition, and manly self-reliance which, 
combined with the natural advantages of the country and 
the freedom of its institutions, made America to him a subject 
of the most interesting speculation and affectionate interest. 

Another Frenchman, whose name and fjxme are far more 
illustriously identified w^ith the political vicissitudes and influ- 
ential literature of his times, saw somewhat of America, and 

* " M^moircs," &c., par M. le Comte de Segur, torn; i, pp. 412, 413, 
Paris, 1825. 



118 AMERICA AND HEK COMIMENTATORS. 

reported his impressions with characteristic latitude and sen- 
timent. The scene of his best romance is laid in one of the 
Southern States ; hut the description of nature and percep- 
tion of Indian character are far removed from scientific pre- 
cision. Yet over all that Chateaubriand wrote, however 
warped by egotism or rendered melodramatic by exaggera- 
tion, there breathes an atmosphere of sentiment, whereby a 
certain humanity and eloquence make significant what would 
otherwise often seem unreal and meretricioixs. He loved 
nature, and, by virtue of a vivid imagination and intense 
consciousness, connected all he saw with his own life and 
thought. His visit to our shores forms an interesting episode 
in his " Memoires d'outre Tombe." After crossing the At- 
lantic, he was becalmed ofi" the shores of Maryland and Vir- 
ginia, and had leisure to appreciate the beautiful skies ; 
imprudently bathed in waters infested with sharks ; trav- 
ersed woods of balsam trees and cedars, where he observed 
with infinite pleasure the cardinal and mocking birds, the 
gray squirrels, and a " negro girl of extraordinary beauty." 
The contrast between these wild charms and the cities was 
most uncongenial to the poetical emigre. He " felt the archi- 
tectural deformity " of the latter, and declares, sadly, that 
" nothing is old in America excejiting the woods." But his 
chief disappointment consisted in the discovery that the 
modes of life and tone of manners were so far removed 
from what he had fondly imagined of the ideal republic. 
"A man," he writes in 1791, "landing, like myself, in the 
United States, full of enthusiasm for the ancients — a Cato, 
seeking, wherever he goes, the austerity of the primitive 
manners of Rome —must be exceedingly scandalized to find 
everywhere elegance in dress, luxury in equipages, frivolity 
in conversation, inequality of fortunes, the immorality of 
gaming houses, and the noise of balls and theatres. In 
Philadelphia I could have fancied myself in an English town. 
There was nothing to indicate that I had passed from a mon- 
archy to a republic." Reasoning from historical facts and 
analogy, one Avould imagine that a foreign visitor could only 



FEENCn TEAVELLEKS AJTD WRITERS. 119 

expect to find Anglo-Saxon traits, local and social, in those 
American communities directly founded by English emi- 
grants. Yet Dickens expressed the same disappointment in 
Boston, at the similarity of the place and people to what was 
familiar to him at home, that Chateaubriand confesses, half 
a century previous, in the city of Brotherly Love. The 
allusion to Roman names and manners, so common with 
French writers in their political criticisms, would strike us 
as extremely artificial, were it not that the drama and the 
academic talk in France, at that time, continually adopted!! 
the characters and history of Greece and Rome as the stand- 
ard and nomenclature of an era in every respect essentially 
different — a pedantic tendency akin to the Arcadian terms 
and tastes which so long formalized the degenerate muse in 
Italy. It is not, indeed, surprising that the republican enthu- 
siasts of the Old World should have been disenchanted in 
the New, when they found Avhat is called " society " but a 
tame reflection of that from which they had fled as the 
result of an effete civilization. But the comjjlaint was as 
unreasonable as unjust ; for, in all large and prosperous cora- 
mimities, an identical social, conventional system prevails. 
In America, however, this sphere was very limited, and, at 
the dawn of the republic, embraced remarkable exceptions 
to the usual hollowness and vapid display ; while, in the vast 
domain beyond, the rights, the abilities, and the self-respect 
of human beings found an expression and a scope which, 
however different from Roman development, an"d however 
unsatisfactory to a modern Cato, offered a most refreshing 
contrast to and auspicious innovation upon the crushing, 
hopeless routine of European feudalism. The political dis- 
appointment of the author of Atala induced him to write 
against the Quakers. He found Washington was " not Cin- 
cinnatus, for he passed in a coach and four ; " but when he 
called on the President with a letter of introduction, he 
recognized in his surroundings " the simplicity of an old 
Roman — no guards, not even a "footman." Chateaubriand's 
object was to promote an expedition, set on foot in his own, 



120 AJVfEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

country, for the discovery of the long-sought and much- 
desired " Northwest Passage." It apj^ears that "Washington 
rather discouraged the entei-prise ; upon which the compli- 
mentary instinct was aroused in his guest, who, with the 
usual misapprehension of foreigners as to the character of 
our Revolutiou, and of our matchless chief's relation thereto, 
replied, " It is less difficult to discover the Northwest Passage 
than to create a nation, as you have done." And we can 
easily imagine the amused and urbane " Well, well, young 
man," Avith which Washington dismissed the subject. He 
showed Chateaubriand the key of the Bastile. In describing 
their interview, the French author compai-es him with Bona- 
parte ; and, in allusion to his own feelings on the memorable 
occasion, significantly declares, " I was not agitated." A 
startling experience in his subsequent journey, was encounter- 
ing, in the wilderness of New York State, a dancing master 
of his country teaching the Iroquois to caper scientifically. 
Indeed, the great pleasure derived from his visit was that 
afibrded by the salient contrast of a nascent civilization with 
the wUd beauty of nature. He was awestruck when, in the 
heart of the lonely woods, the distant roar of Niagara 
struck his ear ; and few have approached that shrine of won- 
der and grace with more reverence and delight. The great 
lakes of the interior, the coast fisheries, the isolated sugar 
camp in the maple groves, and the aspect, rites, and traits of 
the aboriginal tribes, excited the earnest curiosity and grati- 
fied the adventurous sentiment which afterward found such 
copious inspiration in a pilgi-image to Jerusalem, a sojourn in 
Rome, exile in England, and a conservative and pathetic plea 
for outraged Christianity in his native land. " It is impos- 
sible," he writes, " to conceive the feelings and the delight 
experienced on seeing the spire of a new steeple rising from 
the bosom of an ancient American forest." 

The transition from the political essayist to the natural 
historian is refreshing. The zest with which Michaux de- 
scribes some of the arborescent wonders of the West is as 
pleasant as his intelligent discussion of economical facts and 



FEENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 121 

Puritan domesticity in the East. Dr. JNIichaux, in the year 
1802, visited the country westward of the Alleghanies and 
the Carolinas, under the auspices of the Minister of the Inte- 
rior. He found delightful companions in the trees, and 
charming hospitality among the flowers ; and, contrasting 
the vegetation of the Southern with that of the Western 
States, gave to his countrymen a correct and unpressive idea 
of the products and promise of the New World, as an arena 
for botanical investigation, and a home for the euterjDrising 
and unfortmiate.* He describes new species of rhododen- 
dron and azalea ; expatiates on the varieties of oak and wal- 
nut ; gives statistics of size, grouping, and diversities in the 
native forests ; points out indigenous medicinal and floral 
products, and discourses genially of the cones of the mag- 
nolia, the fish and shells of the Ohio, the salt licks of Ken- 
tucky, and bear hunting in the Alleghanies. In a word, his 
brief and discursive journal illustrates that delightful series 
of Travels, whose inspiration is the loye of nature, and whose 
object is the exposition of her laws and productions, with 
which ISTuttall, Wilson, Audubon, Lyell, and Agassiz have so 
enriched scientific literature on this contiuent. And while it; 
is interesting to compare the more copious and special narra- 
tives of these endeared writers with that of Michaux, and 
realize the advancement of knowledge and scientific zeal 
suice he wrote, it is no less cheering to witness the social 
progi'ess of the West — especially the effects of the temper- 
ance reform and the success of the grape culture — and revert 
therefrom to the earnest protest of this amiable writer, who, 
as a Frenchman and a naturalist, was revolted at the perver- 
sion of nature's best gifts which the current liabits of the 
population evinced. " The tavei-ns, and especially that in 
which we lodged," writes Michaux of the valley of the Ohio, 
fifty years ago, " were filled with drunkards, who made a 
frightful uproar, and yielded to excesses so horrible as to be 

* " Travels to the "Westward of the Alleghany Mountains in Ohio, Ken- 
tucky and Tennessee," &c., by Dr. F. A. Michaux, translated by Lambert, 
8vo., 1805. 
6 



122 AMERICA AXD HER COMMENTATORS. 

scarciely 'conceived. The rooms, the stairs, the yard were 
covered with men dead drunk ; and those who were still able 
to get their teeth separated, uttered only the accents of fury 
and rage. An inordinate desire for spirituous liquors is one 
of the characteristics of the country in the interior of the 
United States. This passion is so powerful, that they quit 
their habitations, from time to time, to go and get drunk at 
the taverns. They do not relish cider, which tliey think too 
mild. Their distaste for this salutary and agreeable beverage 
is the more extraordinary, since they might easily procure it 
at little expense, for apple trees of every kind succeed won- 
derfully in this country." It has been charged against 
Michaux, that he accepted a commission from Genet to raise 
troops in Kentucky and Louisiana. 

Among the political refugees who found safety and com- 
fort in the United States after the fall of Napoleon, were 
two sons of the dashing and brave but superficial and unfor- 
tunate Murat. One dwelt many years in New Jersey, where 
Joseph Bonaparte, with benign philosophy, enjoyed the ele- 
gant seclusion of a private gentleman so much more than he 
had the cares and honors of royalty ; and, among the extra- 
ordinary vicissitudes that mark the history of individuals 
associated with European politics in our day, the marvellous 
restoration of Murat to fortune in France, ixnder the imperial 
success of Louis Napoleon, is to the people of that little 
town in New Jersey " stranger than fiction ; " for the refugee 
was a boon companion and needy adventurer among them; 
for years supported by his accomj)lished wife and daughter, 
who kejDt a most creditable school, and maintained their self- 
respect with dignity and tact. The other brother, Achille, 
found a home and a wife, with slaves . and a i)lantation, near 
Tallahassee, Fla., and seems to have enjoyed his adopted coun- 
try with the zest of a sportsman and the adventurous spirit 
of his race, and easily to have reconciled himself to the in- 
congruities of such a lot. Nine years of residence made him 
familiar with the country ; and, when an honorary colonel in 
the Belgian army, he presented to a comrade the manuscript 



FRENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 123 

wherein, to inform a friend in Europe, he had written at 
length his impressions and convictions in regard to the 
United States. After his death, it was translated and pub- 
lished in this country.* The distinction of the work is, that 
it is written by a foreigner whose experience of the country 
and whose sympathies are almost as exclusively Southern, as 
if he was a bigoted native instead of a stranger in the land. 
He considers agriculture the primal and pervasive interest ; 
he advocates slavery both on practical and metaphysical 
grounds; he considers Charleston, S. C, the centre -of all 
that is polished and superior in American society ; he shares 
and repeats the obsolete prejxidices about " Yankees," 
founded upon the days of blue laws and peddling ; he 
prophesies the political ascendency of the Southern States, 
and deems the " spirit of calculation " elsewhere " marvel- 
lously connected with the observance of the Sabbath." Yet 
he is enthusiastic in his admiration of and firm in his trust in 
the "principles of liberty" and the system of government. 
He is proud and happy in his American citizenship, grateful 
for the prosjierous home and independent life here enjoyed, 
and throughout his observations there is a singular combi- 
nation of the political enthusiast and the man of the world, 
the miUtaire and the advocate, the lover of pleasure and the 
devotee of freedom. There is little said about the beauties of 
nature, few criticisms on manners ; but the processes whereby 
the Indians are dispossessed, the forest occupied, the hunter 
superseded by the squatter, the latter by the settler, and the 
Territory made a State, are given with the details only obtain- 
able through long personal observation. One chapter is 
devoted to the history of parties ; another to the administra- 
tion of justice ; one to religion, and one to finance. Our 
national means of defence, the Indians, and the new settle- 
ments are described and discussed ; and thus a large amount 

* Murat's (Achille) " Moral and Political Sketch of the United States of 
America," 8vo., London, 1833. 

" America and the Americans," by the late Achille Murat, New 
York, 1849. 



124 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

of correct and valuable information is given. But it is evi- 
dent the writer is acquainted intimately with only one sec- 
tion of the country ; that the new, and not the old communi- 
ties, have been the chief scene of his observation ; and, 
while there is much both fair and fresh in his comments, they 
refer in no small degree to local and temporary facts. Murat 
writes, however, with acute and sympathetic inteUigence, from 
a material point of view ; and it is interesting to contrast 
his speculations of thirty-seven years ago with the events of 
the hour. "The English minister," he writes in 1827, 
" wishing to stop emigration to the United States, descended 
so far as to induce mercenary writers to travel, and promul- 
gate, through the j)ress, false statements against our people 
and Government. In all these works, which had an extensive 
circulation with John Bull, and thereby influenced his mind, 
the subject of slavery has been the avowed and principal 
topic." On which subject he thus argues : " A man meets a 
lion, and has the indubitable right to appropriate the skin of 
the animal to his own particular jjui'pose ; while, on the other 
hand, tlie lion has an equal right to the flesh of the man. 
The difference is, one defends his skin, the other his flesh ; 
hence it follows that the spontaneous objection in each be- 
comes an obstacle to the other, and which either has the 
right to destroy. By an individual right we are by no means 
to understand a natural right. A man has undoubtedly no 
claim to the possession of another man in relation to that 
man, but possesses this claim in relation to society. If I 
mistake not, public opinion in the Southern States is, that 
slavery is necessary, but an evil. I, however, am far from 
considering the question in this pohit of view. On the con- 
trary, I am led to consider it, in certain periods of the his- 
tory or existence of nations, as a good." 

His pro-slavery ai'gument, when at all original, is undis- 
guised sophistry, and compares absurdly with his recogni- 
tion of the principles of civil liberty and self-government ; 
while no foreigner has more cordially entered into the re- 
deeming spirit of individual self-reliance and a controlling 



FKENCH TKAVELLEES AND WKITERS. 125 

public opinion, as means and methods of social progress and 
safety. The plan and scope of the work are such as to render 
it useful and interesting to educated Europeans who contem- 
plate emigration. Its economical details and political- philoso- 
phy are comparatively unauthoritative now, facilities of 
travel and more comj)rehensive and elevated criticism hav- 
ing made the questions and facts clear and familiar. The 
" America and Americans " of Achille Murat is, therefore, a 
work more interesting from the circumstances and history of 
its author, than from its intrinsic novelty or value. 

In that ingenious work wherein the rationale of luxury 
is so genially expounded — the " Physiologic du Gout " — there 
is an episode, whereia the same kindly and cordial estimate 
of republican mamiers and economy characteristic of French 
travellers in America, — is naively apparent. The author, 
though chiefly known by a work which associates his name 
with the pleasures of the table, was, in fact, a philosopher 
whose cast of mind was judicial rather than fanciful ; and 
who, in his most popular book, under the guise of epicurean 
zest, grapples with and illustrates profound truths. An inde- 
fatigable student, a keen sportsman, and a conscientious offi- 
cial, Brillat-Savarin, from the moment his early education was 
completed, filled important situations, such as deputy, mayor, 
president of the civil tribunals, and judge of the bureaii of 
cassation, in his native province ; with the exception of three 
years of exile during the Revolution, which he passed in this 
country, and chiefly in New York, gaining a subsistence by 
teaching his native language and regulating a theatrical 
orchestra. He alludes to his sojourn as an era of pleasant 
experiences. He made numerous friends in America, and 
attributes this to his facility in adopting the habits and man- 
ners of the comitry, and his knowledge of the language ; 
although his quotations are often amusingly incorrect. A 
scholar, musician, man of the world, and jurist, his culture and 
his endowments were such as to make him an appreciative 
observer of life and institutions here ; for he united rare 
powers of observation and reflection with adequate sensibil- 



126 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

ity to the beautiful and the true. He was so tall, that his 
brother judges called him the drum major of the court of 
cassation. He was an habitue of Madame Recamier's 
charming salon. Balzac expressed the opinion that no 
writer, except La Bruyere and La Rochefoucauld, e^er gave 
to French phrases such vigorous relief. Since the death of 
Brillat-Savarin, science has thrown new light upon many sub- 
jects connected with those so agreeably discussed in the 
" Physiologic du Gout ; " still the scope and style of the 
work give it prominence. The application of science to gas- 
tronomy, of taste and wisdom to the art of human nutrition, 
was thus initiated in a most attractive manner, and the inci- 
dental relations of the subject shown to be identical with the 
best interests of society. The author varies his disquisition 
by logical, anecdotical, and eloquent alternations. His per- 
sonal experience is often made to illustrate his speculative 
opinions. Li the chapter devoted to " Coq d'Lade," or " Din- 
don," after describing the turkey as the most beautiful gift 
which the New World has made to the Old, treating as para- 
doxical the tradition that it was known to the ancients, de- 
scribing its introduction to Europe by the Jesuits, discussing 
its natural history, its financial importance, and its gastro- 
nomic value, he thus describes an exploit du professeur : 

"During mj residence at Hartford, in Connecticut, I had the 
pleasure of shooting a wild turkey. This exploit deserves to be 
transmitted to posterity, and I record it with the more complaisance, 
inasmuch as I was the hero. A venerable American farmer had in- 
vited me to sport on his domain ; he lived near the least-settled por- 
tion of the State ; he promised me excellent game, and authorized me 
to bring a friend. Mr. King, my companion, was a remarkable 
sportsman ; he was passionately fond of the exercise, but, after hav- 
ing killed his bird, he regarded himself as a murderer, and made the 
victim's fate the subject of moral reflections and interminable elegies. 
On a beautiful morning in October, 1794, we left Hartford on hired 
horses, hoping to reach our destination, five mortal leagues distant, 
before the evening. Although the route was scarcely indicated by 
travel, we arrived without accident, and were received with that 
cordial and unpretending hospitality whicli is expressed in actions 
rather than words : in short, we were immediately made to feel 



FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 127 

comfortable and at home — men, horses, and dogs — according to their 
respective wants and convenience. Two hours were spent in exam- 
ining the farm and its dependencies ; I would describe all this in de- 
tail, but I prefer to introduce to the reader the four beautiful daugh- 
ters of Monsieur Bulow, to whom our visit was an important incident. 
Their ages ranged from sixteen to twenty ; they were radiant with 
ibe freshness of health, and they possessed that simplicity, ease, and 
frankness which the most common actions develop into a thousand 
charms. Soon after our return from the walk, we were seated at a 
table abundantly provided ; — a superb piece of corned beef, a fine stew, 
a magnificent leg of mutton, plenty of vegetables, and, at each end 
of the table, enormous jars of excellent cider, with which I could not 
be satiated. When we had proved to our host that we were genuine 
sportsmen, at least in regard to appetite, the conversation turned upon 
the object of our visit. He pointed out the best places for game, the 
landmarks whereby we could find our way back, and the farmhouses 
at which we could procure refrosliinents. During this discussion the 
ladies had prepared some excellent tea, of which we drank several 
cups ; after which, ascending to a double-bedded room, we enjoyed 
the delicious sleep induced by exercise and good cheer. The next 
morning, after partaking of refreshment ordered to be in readiness by 
Monsieur Bulow, we started for a day's sport, and I found myself, for 
the first time, in a virgin forest. I wandered there with delight, ob- 
serving the effects of time, both productive and destructive; and 
amused myself by following the different periods in the life of an 
oak, from the moment it breaks through the mould with two little 
leaves, until all that remains of it is a long black trace — the dust of 
its heart. Mr. King reproached me for these abstract musings ; and 
we began the sport in earnest ; shooting numerous small but fat and 
tender partridges : we bagged six or seven gray squirrels, which are 
much esteemed here ; and, at last, my happy star brought us into the 
midst of a flock of wild turkeys. They followed, at short intervals, 
one after the other, with rapid, brief flights, and uttering loud cries. 
Mr. King shot first, and ran on ; most of the flock were soon out of 
range, bnt the largest bird rose ten paces before me ; I fired instantly, 
and he fell dead. One must be a sportsman to conceive the delight 
which this beautiful shot occasioned me. I seized the superb fowl, 
and a quarter of an hour afterward heard Mr. King calling for aid ; 
hastening toward him, I found that the assistance he craved was 
help in finding a turkey which he pretended to have shot, but whicli 
had mysteriously disappeared. I put my dog on the trace ; but he 
only led us among thickets and brambles, wliich a man could hardly 
penetrate ; it was necessary to abandon the pursuit, which my com- 
panion did iu a fit of ill humor that lasted all the rest of the day. 



128 AMERICA AKD HEK COMMENTATORS. 

The remainder of our sport does not merit description. In returning, 
we became confused in the woods, and ran no small risk of passing 
the night there ; but the silvery voices ot the ladies Bulovr and the 
shouts of their father, who had the kindness to seek us, guided us 
back. The four sisters were in full dress : fresh robes, new girdles, 
beautifid bonnets, and bright shoes, proclaimed that they had made 
a toilette in our honor ; and I had, on my side, equal intention to 
make myself agreeable to these ladies, one of whom accepted my arm 
with as much candor and propriety as if she had been my wife. On 
reaching the house we found a supper already served ; but, before 
partaking of it, we seated ourselves an instant near a bright fire, 
which had been kindled, although the weather did not make it indis- 
pensable ; we found it, however, most welcome. This custom is, 
doubtless, adopted from the aborigines, who always have a fire on 
their hearth ; perhaps thence came the tradition of Francis de Sales, 
who said a fire was desirable twelve months in the year. "We ate as 
if half famished, and finished the evening with an enormous bowl of 
punch ; and a conversation, wherein our host was more free than the 
previous evening, occupied ns far into the night. We talked of tho 
"War of Independence, in which Monsieur Bulow had served as a supe- 
rior oflicer ; of La Fayette, who grows continually in the grateful 
appreciation of the Americans, and whom they always designate by 
his title — the Marquis ; of agriculture, which then was enriching the 
United States, and finally of that dear France which I love all the 
more since I was obliged to quit her shores. To vary the conversa- 
tion, M. Bulow, from time to time, said to his oldest daughter : 
'Maria, give us a song ; ' and she sang, without being urged, and with 
an embarrassment that was charming, the national song, the com- 
plaint of Queen Mary, and trial of Major Andre, which are very pop- 
ular in this country. Maria had taken a few lessons, and, in this 
isolated region, passed for an adept ; but her singing derived all its 
merit from the quality of her voice, at once sweet, fresh, and em- 
phatic. The next day we left, notwithstanding the most friendly re- 
monstrances ; for I had indispensable duties to fulfil. While the 
horses were preparing, Monsieur Bulow took me aside and said, ' You 
see in me, my dear sir, a happy man, if there is one on earth : all that 
jon see around and witliin is mine. Tliese stockings my daughters knit ; 
my shoes and garments are provided by my flocks and herds; they 
contribute, also, with my garden and fields, to furnish a simple and 
substantial nourishment; and, what is the best eulogy upon our Gov- 
ernment, is the fact, that thousands of Connecticut farmers are not 
less content than myself; whose doors, too, like my own, are with- 
out locks. The taxes here are not large ; and, when they are paid, 
we can sleep in peace. Congress favors our industry with aU its 



FKENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WEITEES. 129 

power ; manufacturers are eager to take whatever surplus produce 
we have to sell ; and I have money laid up, and am about to dispose 
of grain at twenty-four dollars a ton, whicli usually sells for eight. 
All this comes from the liberty we have conquered and founded upon 
good laws. I am master in my own domain ; and it will surprise you 
to know that I never hear the sound of a drum, except on the Fourth 
of July, the glorious anniversary of our independence, and never see 
uniforms, soldiers, or bayonets.' During the whole period of return 
I was absorbed in profound reflections ; and you may Avell believe that 
these last words of Monsieur Bulow occupied my mind. At last I had 
another subject of meditation : I thought how it was best to have 
my turkey cooked and served. I was not without perplexity, as I 
feared it would be difficult to find at Hartford all the requisite means ; 
for I wished to dispose of my trophy in the most eftective and bril- 
liant manner. I make a painful sacrifice in suppressing the details of 
profound study — the aim whereof was to treat in a distinguished man- 
ner the American guests whom I had engaged for the banquet. Suf- 
fice it to say that the wings of the partridges were served aujmjiil- 
lote, and the gray squirrels cour houillonnes au vin de Madere. As to 
the turkey, which constituted our only plate of roast, it was charm- 
ing to behold, fragrant to inhale, and delicious to the taste : so much 
so that, until the last morsel had disappeared, we heard from all sides 
of the table the exclamations : Tres-lon, extrememcnt Ion ! <9, moii 
cTier monsieur, quel glorieux morceau ! " 

From a region of vast promise, the United States had 
become one of accomplished destiny, so far as the establish- 
ment of a novel and extensive free government is concerned ; 
and the results, economical, political, and social, in full de- 
velopment. Accordingly, the exploration of the agriculturist 
and manufacturer, the comments of the practical emigrant, 
and the social gossip, began to give way to the speculations 
of the philosopher ; science investigated what curiosity had 
originally observed ; and our country won the earnest thought 
of the humanitarian analyst, intent upon tracing laws of civil 
life and popular growth under the extraordinary physical, 
moral, and social influences of the New World. A yoimg 
Frenchman who came to America as commissioner, to report 
upon our system of prison discipline, in 1830, subsequently 
published a work on the United States quite diftcrcnt in scope 
and aim from those we have before noted. Whatever may be 



130 AMKRICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

thought of Alexis de Tocqueville's views of " Democracy in 
America," that treatise began a new era in the literatm'e of 
American travel.* It seriously grasped the problems of human 
life, destiny, and progress involved in an Anglo-Saxon repub- 
lic on the immense scale of these United States. The pecu- 
liar claim and character of De Tocqueville's work is, that, 
ignoring, in a great measure, the superficial aspects and casual 
traits of the country and people, he has patiently and pro- 
foundly examined and reported the elementary civic life 
thereof, with a view to ascertain and demonstrate absolute 
political and social truth. A brief analysis, or even a rim- 
"ning commentary on such a treatise, would do it no justice ; 
and a more elaborate discussion is inconsistent with the limits 
of a volume like this. The necessity for either course is 
obviated by the fact that De Tocqueville's work is so familiar 
to all thinkers, and so accessible to all readers. To indicate 
the scope and motives of the author, we have but to recur 
to his own introductory statement : 

" It is not merely to satisfy a legitimate curiosity that I 
have examined Amei'ica. My wish has been to find instruc- 
tion by which we may ourselves profit. Whoever should 
imagine that I have intended to write a panegyric, would be 
strangely mistaken, and, on reading this work, he will per- 
ceive that such is not ray design. !Nor has it been my object 
to advocate any form of government in particular ; for I am 
of opinion that absolute excellence is rarely to be found in 
any legislation. I have not even affected to discuss whether 
the social revolution, which I believe to be irresistible, is ad- 
vantageous or prejudicial to mankind. I have acknowledged 
this revolution as a fact already accomplished, or on the eve 
of accomplishment ; and I have selected the nation from 

* " De la Democratic en Amerique," par A. de Tocqueville, 4 vols., Svo., 
Paris, 1835-'41. 

De Tocqueville's " Democracy in America," translated by Henry Reeve, 
Esq. ; edited, with notes, the translation revised and in great part rewritten, 
and the additions made to the recent Paris editions now first translated, by 
Francis Bowen, Alford Professor of Moral Philosophy in Harvard University ; 
2 vols., post Svo. 



FRENCH TEAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 131 

among those who have undergone it, in Avhich its develop- 
ment has been the most peaceful and the most complete, in 
order to discern its natural consequences, and, if it be pos- 
sible, to distinguish the means by which it may be rendered 
profitable. I confess that in America I saw more than 
America ; I soiight the image of democracy itself, Avith its 
inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions, in 
order to learn Avhat we have to fear or to ho^^e from its 
progress." 

Thus it is universal principles, and not special traits, that 
M. de Tocqueville discusses. It is because of the identity of 
American development with human destiny, and not as a 
fragmentary phenomenon and a peculiar nationality, that he 
deemed it worthy of his conscientious study. In the first 
part of his work, he shows " the tendency given to the laws 
by the democracy of America ; " in the second, " the influ- 
ence which the equality of conditions and the rule of democ- 
racy exercise on civil society." The mere mention of such 
texts indicates at once the vastly superior aim and higher 
motives of De Tocqueville, when compared with so many other 
commentators on America. Not as a social critic, a natural- 
ist, a complacent vagabond, a pedantic raconteur, or a viva- 
cious gossip, but as a humane philosopher, does he approacb 
the problem of American life, institutions, and destiny. 
Hence the permanent value and present significance of his 
work, than which no abstract political treatise was ever so 
frequently quoted and referred to in the cm-rent discussions 
of the hour. The prophetic wisdom of his work proves how 
justly he declared : " I have imdei'taken not to see differently, 
but to look farther than parties ; and, while they are busied 
for the morrow, I have turned my thoughts to the future." 

The mature and wholesome fruit of such conscientious 
intelligence has long been recognized both at bome and 
abroad. " M. de Tocqueville," writes Vericour, " has revealed 
to Europe the spirit of the American laws, deduced from a 
comprehensive survey of xisages and institutions. He has 
decomposed, with a firm and skilful hand, the curious 



132 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

mechanism of this new government. In a cahn and dispas- 
sionate spirit he investigates its action, effects, imj)ulses, and 
destinies, gradually leading his reader to a profound knowl- 
edge of America ; while, upon manifold questions of the 
gravest interest to Europe, affecting its future progress and 
welfare, he throws unexpected streams of light." With the 
fondness for broad generalization from inadequate premises, 
and for specific infei'ences from casual facts, which makes so 
many of his countrymen philosophize charmingly, hut at ran- 
dom, De Tocqueville yet seized upon some vital princij^les of 
our national life, clearly and ti'uly illustrated some normal 
tendencies and traits of our civil and social character, and 
initiated a method of observation and discussion more 
thoughtful, authentic, and wise than any one of his more 
superficial predecessors. No one can read his work without 
finding it full of valuable suggestions, and often profoundly 
significant. He looked upon the country with the eye of a 
philosopher ; and, however the prejudices of his own coimtry 
and culture may haA'e exaggerated some and obscured other 
perceptions, the spirit of his survey was comprehensive, 
humane, and acute. The geographical peculiarities of the 
country, the origin of her Anglo-American colonists, and 
their different national elements, are briefly considered. The 
" advanced theory of legislation " of the first laws enacted ; 
the Puritan as distinguished from the English character of 
the colonists ; the system of townships in New England ; 
the predominance of popular will ; the ideas of honor, of 
equality, administration, prerogative, suffrage, law ; the alle- 
giance to education and religion, trial by jury, the Federal 
Constitution — each distinctive form and feature of our politi- 
cal system is described and considei'ed ; and then the reflex 
influence of these upon manners, language, labor, family life, 
letters, art, and individual character, is more or less truly 
indicated — our restlessness of temper, monotonous social 
experience, devotion to physical well-being, absorption in the 
immediate, im chastened style of speech and writing, mate- 
rialism, subservience to public opinion. The unique privi- 



FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 133 

leges and peculiar dangers born of onr political condition, 
are defined and delineated, not, indeed, with strict accuracy, 
but often with salutary wisdom and rare perspicacity. 

Alexis de Tocqueville was born at Paris, in 1805. He 
studied for some time at the College of Metz ; travelled with 
one of his brothers in Italy and Sicily ; was attached, after 
his return, to the court of justice at Versailles, where his 
father, the Count de Tocqueville, was prefect. While per- 
forming the duties of Juge-Aud'deur^ he found time to 
engage with ardor ui pohtical studies. , After the Revolution 
of 1830, he obtained from the Ministry of the Interior a mis- 
sion to America, for the purpose of examining our system of 
prison disciphne. In 1831 he came to the United States with 
his friend M.. de Beaumont, and, after a year's residence, 
returned to Paris, and soon after published the first two vol- 
umes of his " Democracy in America " — a work that estab- 
lished his rejjutation as an original and systematic tlimker on 
political questions and social science. He married an English 
lady ; became a member of the Chamber of Deputies, being 
reelected from Yalognes for nine successive years. Mean- 
time he Avas chosen a member of the Institute, received an 
academy prize, and published the additional volumes of his 
work on America. Eminently conscientious and useful in 
public, and happy in domestic life, De Tocqueville continued 
to think, write, and speak on subjects of vital social interest, 
until the failure of his health enforced a life of retirement, 
which was peculiarly congenial to his studious habits and 
elevated sympathies. " There ever seemed to stand before 
his imagination," says a recent critic, " tAVO great moral 
figures, sufficient to occupy his entire being, ever correlative, 
continually intermingled : the one, France, her Revolution and 
its consequences ; the other, England, her constitutional lib- 
erty and its gigantic democratic development in the United 
States of America." With all his recognition of democracy 
as the inevitable political tendency and test of humanity, lie 
thoroughly understood how few were able to conceive or 
enjoy the legitimate fruits of liberty as an inspiration of 



134: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

character. " It enters," he writes, " into the large hearts 
God has prepared to receive it ; it fills them, it enraptures 
them : but to the meaner minds which have never felt it, it 
is past finding out." 

He was one of the deputies arrested on the 2d of Decem- 
ber, 1851, at the time of Napoleon III.'s coup cVetat, and 
was confined for a time at Vincennes. " Here," writes his 
friend and biographer, De Beaumont, " ended his political 
life. It ended with liberty in France." We have the same 
authority for a beautiful and harmonious estimate of his 
character both as a writer and a man. He died at the age 
of fifty-four, in 1859. 

" I have said," remarks his intimate comi:)anion and faith- 
ful biographer, " that he had many friends ; but he experi- 
enced a still greater happiness — that of never losing one of 
them. He had also another happiness : it was the knowing 
how to love them all so well, that none ever complained of 
the share he received, even Avhile seeing that of the others. 
He was as ingenious as he was sincere in his attachments ; 
and never, perhaps, did example prove better than his, ' com- 
bien I'esprit ajoute de charmes a la bonte." 

" Good as he was, he aspired without ceasing to become 
better ; and it is certain that each day he drew nearer to 
that moral perfection which seemed to him the only end 
worthy of man He was more patient, more labo- 
rious, more watchful to lose nothing of that life which he 
loved so well, and which he had the right to find beautiful — 
he who made of it so noble a use ! Finally, it may be said 
to his honor, that at an epoch in which each man tends to 
concentrate his regard upon himself, he had no other aim than 
that of seeking for truths useful to his fellows, no other j^as- 
sion than that of increasing their well-being and their dig- 
nity." 

An episode of De Tocqueville's American tour, published 
after his death, evinces a sensibility to nature and a power 
of obseiwation in her sphere, which are rarely combined with 
such logical tendencies as his political disquisitions manifest. 



FEENCH TRAYELLEKS AND WKITEKS. 135 

It is a remarkable fact, that a visit to one of the oldest seats 
of civilization, in his youth, inspired him with tliat love of 
economical and humane studies which led, in his prime, to 
the sojourn in and the examination of the United States. 
His biographer tells us that, during De Tocqueville's tour in 
Sicily, " witnessing the misery inflicted on the people by a 
detestable Governmentj he was led to reflect on the primary 
conditions on which depends the decay or the prosperity of 
nations." We learn, from tlie same authority, that his mis- 
sion to the United States was a pretext for, not the cause of, 
investigations there. The secret of his liberal and earnest 
spirit of inquiry, whereby his work attained jjermanent sig- 
nificance and philosophic value, is to be found not less in the 
character than the mind of De Tocqueville ; for his intimate 
friend and the companion of his travels assures us, that 
" the gfcat problem of the destiny of man impressed him 
Avith daily increasing awe and reverence." It is this senti- 
ment, so deep and prevailing, which enabled him, as a social 
and political critic, to rise " above the narrow views of party 
and the passions of the moment ;" for it was his noble dis- 
tinction as a writer, a citizen, and a man, " in a selfish age, to 
aim only at the pursuit of truths useful to his fellow crea- 
tures." De Tocqueville was surprised and attracted by the 
" admirable and unusual good sense of the Americans." He 
entered with singular zest into the freshness and adventure 
of border life, enjoyed a bivouac in the forests of Tennessee, 
and a " fortnight in the wilderness," where he saw the In- 
dian, the pioneer, and the difierent classes of emigres j 
noting tlie sensations and the sentiment of this experience, 
with as much accuracy and relish as breathe from his specu- 
lations on the institutions and the destiny of the New 
World. He found " mosquitoes the curse of the American 
woods," yet realized therein the " soft melancholy, the vague 
aversion to civilized life, and the sort of savage instinct" 
which so many poetical and adventurous minds, from Boone 
to Chateaubriand, have acknowledged under the same influ- 
ences. His analysis of the French, American, half-caste, and 



130 AMEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

Indian inhabitants of the new settlements is discriminating ; 
and he was keenly alive to the contrast of this new life and its 
primitive conditions to that he had known in Europe. " Here," 
he writes, " man still seems to steal into life." The uniform 
tone of character, and the similarity of aspect incident to the 
fact that the dwellers in the woods of America are, with few 
exceptions, emigrants from civilized communities, struck De 
Tocqueville forcibly, accustomed as he was to a peasant class, 
and those diversities of character which spring from feudal 
distinctions. His remarks on this subject are true and sug- 
gestive : 

" In America, more even than in Europe, there is Lnt one society, 
Avhether rich or poor, high or Ionv, commercial or agricultural; it is 
everywhere composed of the same elements. It has all been raised or 
reduced to the same level of civilization. The man whom you left in 
the streets of New York, you find again in the solitude of the far 
West ; the same dress, the same tone of mind, the same language, the 
same habits, the same amusements. No rustic simplicity, nothing 
characteristic of the wilderness, nothing even like our villages. This 
peculiarity may be easily explained. The portions of territory first 
and most fully peopled have reached a high degree of civilization. 
Education has been prodigally bestowed ; the spirit of equality has 
tinged with singular uniformity the domestic habits. Now, it is re- 
markable that the men thus educated are those who every year mi- 
grate to the desert. In Europe, a man lives and dies wliere he was 
born. In America, you do not see the representatives of a race 
grown and multiplied in retirement, having long lived unknown to 
the world, and left to its own efibrts. The inhabitants of an isolated 
region arrived yesterday, bring with them the habits, ideas, and 
wants of civilization. They adopt only so much of savage life as is 
absolutely forced upon them ; hence you see the strangest contrasts. 
You step from the wilderness into the streets of a city, from the wild- 
est scenes to the most smiling pictures of civilized life. If night does 
not surprise you, and force you to sleep under a tree, you may reach 
a village where you will find everything, even French fashions and 
caricatures from Paris. The shops of Buffalo or Detroit are as well 
supplied with all these things as those of New York. The looms of 
Lyons work for both alike. You leave the high road ; you plunge 
into paths scarcely marked out ; you come at length upon a ploughed 
field, a hut built of rough logs, lighted by a single narrow window ; 
you think that you have at last reached the abode of an American 



FEENCH TRAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 137 

peasant ; you are wrong. You enter this hut, which looks the abode 
of misery; the master is dressed as you are ; his language is that of 
the towns. On his rude table are books and newspapers ; he takes 
you hurriedly aside to be informed of what is going on in Europe, 
and asks you what has most struck you in his country. He will trace 
on paper for you the plan of a campaign in Belgium, and will teach 
you gravely what remains' to be done for the prosperity of France, 
You might take him for a rich proprietor, come to spend a few nights 
in a shooting box. And, in fact, the log hut is only a halting place 
for the American — a temporary submission to necessity. As soon as 
the surrounding fields are thoroughly cultivated, and their owner has 
time to occupy himself with superfluities, a more spacious dwelling 
will succeed the log hut, and become the home of a large family of 
children, who, in their turn, will some day build themselves a dwell- 
ing in the wilderness." 

As was inevitable, De Tocqueville, in describing and dis- 
cussing our governmental institutions, made some mistakes. 
Looking at the organization of the central and State Govern- 
ments in the abstract, he could not perceive any guarantee 
for the supremacy of the former in case of serious dissatisfac- 
tion on the part of a State. To one familiar with the mili- 
tary and administrative system of Europe, it is not surprising 
that the national power should appear inadequate and un- 
sanctioned in such a contingency ; but farther consideration 
would have modified this scepticism, had the sagacious and 
honest critic been more practically acquainted with the latent 
agencies at work. The f;ict is to be found in the history of 
the Constitution itself, wherein it is made apparent that the 
surrender of State sovereignty to national laAV was regarded 
as absolute, and not experimental. The hesitation of some 
States, the arguments for and agaiust union, so able, deliber- 
ate, and earnest, and the entire tone and tactics of the peer- 
less Convention which, at last, gave authority t6 that great 
instrument of repi;blican rule, all show that the compact was 
a vital and permanent inauguration of popular sentiment 
and embodiment of popular will. Less binding affiliations 
had been tried under tlie old Confederacy, and the indepen- 
dent coexistence of the several States had brought the 



138 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 

country to the verge of ruin, before the wise and patriotic 
instincts of the people led them to merge the life of States, 
so flickering and fugitive, into that of a nation so self-subsist- 
ent and powerful ; and to the maintenance thereof the people 
thus became forever pledged, and hence prepared to defend 
and enforce what they had calmly and voluntarily decreed. 
Hence the resources of all the States became pledged to the 
integrity of the nation ; precisely as, in so many instances, in 
the history of other Governments, the will of the majority has 
made the law, the system, the form, and the foundation, 
thenceforth the object of loyal support, protection, and faith. 
Recent events have, indeed, proved the fallacy of De Tocque- 
ville's remark, that " if one of the States desires to withdraw 
its name from the compact, it would be difficult to disprove 
its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would 
have no means of maintaining its claims either by force or 
right." Even this experiment has never yet been tried, no 
legitimate and free expression of the desire " to withdraw its 
name from the compact " ever yet having been made by the 
constitutional voice of any State. The " secession" of 1861 
was effected by as flagrant violation of State as of Federal law. 
" The prescience and wisdom of De Tocqueville are em- 
phatic in what he says of the dangers attenduig our insti- 
tutions. Herein, instead of seeking in the form of govern- 
ment itself the only causes for vigilance, and finding sophis- 
tical arguments to decry republican manners and culture, after 
the prejudiced style of most English writers, he notes the 
local and incidental influences, the facts of nature and of his- 
tory peculiar to America, as threatening to the integrity of 
the republic — especially the disproportionate increase of cer- 
tain States ; the jealousy of the slaveholders and their eco- 
nomical theories ; the conflict between free and slave labor, 
and the consequences thereof; the sudden growth of popula- 
tion ; universal suffrage without equal or adequate education ; 
the frequency of elections — and utters thereon many philo- 
sophical arguments full of insight and sympathy. " There 
are, at the present time," he observes, " two groat nations in 



FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 139 

the •world, which seem to tend toward the same end, although 
they started from different points : I allude to the Russians 
and the Americans. The woi'ld learned their existence and 
their greatness at almost the same time. The Anglo-Ameri- 
can relies upon personal interest to acoraplish his ends, and 
gives free scope to the unguided exertions and common sense 
of the citizens ; the Russian centres all the authority of soci- 
ety in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former 
is freedom ; of the latter, servitude. Tlieir starting point is 
different, and their courses are not the same ; yet each of 
them seems to be marked out by the will of Heaven to sway 
the destinies of half the globe." 

" It was my intention," observes De Tocqueville, " to 
depict, in another work, the influence which the equality of 
condition and the rule of democracy exercise upon the civil 
society, the habits, and the manners of the Americans. I 
begin, hoAvever, to feel less ardor for the accomplishment of 
this object since the excellent work of my friend and travel- 
ling companion, M. de Beaumont, has been given to the 
world.* 

The grave statistical work with Avhich the name of De 
Beaumont was identified, made his advent as a romance 
writer a surprise. But he aspired to no such title. His 
" Marie " deals with historical and social facts under a very 
thin disguise of fiction, adopted rather to give free scope to 
speculation in the form of imaginary conversations, than to 
subserve dramatic effect. The thread of the story is evolved 
from what the author found to be a prevalent and permanent 
social prejudice. He relates an incident which occurred in a 
Northern city during his sojourn in America, which made a 
great impression upon his mind. A gentleman of dark com- 
plexion, and regarded as a mulatto, was forcibly ejected from 
the theatre, simply and only because of liis color. M. de 
Beamnont sought to trace the extent and ascertain the force 
of this " barri^re place entre les deux races par un prejugo 

* " Marie, ou L'Esclavage aux iltats Unis, Tableau de Mceurs Americaines," 
par Gustave de Beaumont, Bruxelles, 1825. 



140 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

sociale ; " and this forms the inspiration of his story, wherein 
the course of true love does not run smooth because of a 
difference, not of character, refinement, or position, but of 
chemical proportions in the blood of the lovers. Much ro- 
mantic emotion and no little social and moral philosophy are 
ingeniously deduced from this circumstance. If there are 
few startling incidents, there is a chamiing tone and grace of 
style. If the " situations " are not dramatic, they are often 
picturesque. Extreme statements occur in the discussions, 
but they are modified by explanations given in the copious 
notes appended to the story. While antipathies of race and 
the problem of slavery constitute the serious and pervading 
themes, manners and customs in general are illustrated and 
considered with reference to the institutions of the United 
States. There is little originality in these topics or their 
treatment. They have long been staple texts for theoretical 
and practical criticism by the j^ulpit and the press. M. de 
\ Beaumont, or rather his imaginary characters, comment on 
-^' the materialism, the devotion to gain, the absence of taste, 
the nomadic habits, the unimaginative spirit, and the monoto- 
nous routine of American life. Elections, emeutes, Sundays, 
sects, domestic and social tendencies and traits, are deline- 
ated often in a partial or exaggerated way, yet, on the whole, 
with candor, and in much more pleasing and finished lan- 
guasre than we often find in books of travel. Our sociable 
arrangements are attributed in part to our comparative equal- 
ity of condition, which is also justly declared to promote 
marriage, whereas rank, in France, discourages it. The 
total separation of church and sta|:e, and the consequent mul- 
tiplicity of sects, however favorable to religious convictions, 
are described as wholly opposed to the development of art. 
An industrial career being the destiny of the American, he 
is soon in the way of gaining at least subsistence, and a 
home and family of his own is the natural consequence ; so 
that one of the rare things in America, according to tins 
observer, is " an old boy of twenty-live " — in other words, a 
young bachelor. 



FRENCH TKAVELLERS AND WKITEES. 141 

From Baltimore the reader is transported to un foret 
vierge, and refreshed with some delicious landscapes ; for De 
Beaumont, as well as his friend and companion De Tocque- 
ville, had a keen eye for nature in the New World, and de- 
scribes her wild and characteristic features with vivid truth 
and feeling. Few modern books of travel in America give 
a more complete, authentic, and interesting sketch of the 
condition of the diflerent Indian tribes. They and the ne 
groes occupy a large space in the descriptions and discussions 
of this work, and obviously enlist the warmest and most 
intelligent sympathies of the author. His comments on the 
lack of artistic enthusiasm, of hon gout and tact fin et subtil 
in literature, and on the intensely practical tone of mind, the 
pride and jealousy of which money is the motive and object, 
the want of tune for sentiment and gallantry, the partisan 
ferocity, and the dearth of romance and repose, are some- 
times extravagant, but often piquant and just, and not unfre- 
quently amusing from their partial recognition of latent facts 
and feelings whereby their power and prevalence are essen- 
tially modified. We are told there is no heureuse pauvrete in 
America, and no small theatres, and — as consequent upon the 
latter defect — a lamentable want of dramatic talent and 
taste ; and that, while love is wholly in abeyance to interest, 
our charitable institutions are original and effective. The 
extreme " facilitc de s'eni-icher et d'arriver au sacerdoce," it 
is declared, produces serious and often sinister social results. 
As with all Frenchmen, the different relative positions of the 
sexes, and the character and career of women in America 
and in France, excite frequent comment. " Les femmes 
Americaines," we are told, " ont, en general, un esprit orne 
mais pen d'imagination et plus de raison que de sensibilite ; 
pour toute fille qui a plus de seize ans la mariagc est la grand 
interet de la vie. En France elle le desire ; en Amerique elle 
le cherche : chez nous la coquetterie est une passion ; en 
Amerique un calcul." He is touched with the fragility of 
constitution which makes the beauty of our women so pro- 
verbially transient, and observes that their girlish days are 



142 AlVIERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

the most free and happy ; for wliile, in France, marriage 
brings a liberty to the wife unknown to the maiden, in 
Amei'ica it ends the irresponsible gayety, and initiates " les 
devoirs austeres au foyer domestique." There is much truth 
and wisdom in many of the generalizations in M. de Beau- 
mont's graceful supplement to M, de Tocqiieville's stern 
analysis of facts. But, while the reasoning and principles 
of the latter are quite as, if not more significant to-day than 
•when they were written, many of the former's comments 
have lost their special application, and may now be quite as 
justly appropriated by his own countrymen as by Americans 
— so completely, in a quarter of a century, has chivabio 
France become material, and money overpowered rank, sub- 
sidized political aspirations, and made uniform, luxurious, and 
mercenary the standard tone and traits of social life ; whUe, 
in America, new and momentous practical issues have suc- 
ceeded the speculative phase of slavery, and a direct physical 
and moral conflict between its champions and those of free 
constitutional government, has develojied unimagined re- 
sources of character and results of democratic rule, which 
may yet purify and exalt the national ideal and the social 
traits, so as to make wholly traditional many of the worse 
"blots on the escutcheon" so emphatically designated by 
this and other humane and enlightened commentators on 
America. 

Another of De Tocqueville's most congenial friends was 
J. J. Ampere, so long the amiable and accomplished profes- 
sor of belles lettres in the College of France, and the biogra- 
pher of the author of " Democracy in America " judiciously 
refers to Amptire's " Promenade en Amerique " * as an excel- 
lent illustration of his friend's philosophical work, giving 
the facts and impressions which confirm and explain it. Not 
only did community of opmion and mutual affection suggest 
this relation between the two authors, diverse in plan and 
1^0 wer as are their respective books on this country ; but it 

* " Promenade en Amerique.," par J. J. Ampere, de I'Academie rran9aise, 
Paris, 1855. 



FRENCH TKAVELLERS AKD WRITERS. 143 

was when reading De Tocqueville's " Democracy," during a 
trip U23 the Rhine, that Ampore conceived the desire and 
purpose to visit the United States. Looking up from the 
thoughtful page to some ruined tower or raemora*ble scene, 
he had the relics of feudalism before his eyes, while his mind 
was occupied with the modern development of humanity in 
the most free and fraternal civic institutions. lie had trav- 
elled in Greece, Italy, and the East, and brought a scholar's 
wisdom and a poet's sj^npathy to the illustration of that 
experience ; and now, under the inspiration of his friend's 
treatise on the condition and prospects of the Western repi;b- 
lic, he felt a strong interest in the experiment whereby he 
could compare the New with the Old World, and observe the 
most intense life of the present as he had explored the calm 
monuments of the past. Ampere's record of his American 
tour is singularly unpretending. It resembles, in tone and 
method, the best conversation. The style is pure and ani- 
mated, and the thoughts naturally suggested. He describes 
what he sees with candor and geniality, criticizes without 
the slightest acrimony, and commends with graceful zeal. 
And yet, simple and unambitious as the narrative is, it affords 
a most agreeable, authentic, and suggestive illustration of De 
Tocqueville's theories. " Toujours," he exclaims, " la negli- 
gence Americaine ! " in noting a shoAver of ignited cinders 
falling upon cotton bales on the deck of a crowded steam- 
boat ; and, in describing the substitute for bells in the hotel 
at New Orleans, he remarks : " Les sonnettes sont remplacoes 
par un appareil electro-magnetiqne. En ce pays, non-seule- 
ment la science est applique a I'industrie, mais on I'emploie 
aux offices les plus vulgaires. An lieu de tirer le cordon 
d'une sonnette on fait jouer une pile de Volta." 

The arrival of Kossuth gave Ampere an excellent oppor- 
tunity to note the phases of popular feeling in Anjerica. He 
has that catholic taste and temper so essential to a good trav- 
eller. He takes an interest in whatever relates to humanity, 
and his extensive reading and cosmopolitan experience place 
him en rapport with people and things, historical associations, 



144 AMERICA AJSTD HEK COMMENTATOKS . 

and speculative opinions, with the greatest facility. While 
devoting attention to those subjects which have always occu- 
pied intelligent travellers in Ameiica, he sought and enjoyed, 
to an uncommon extent, the companionship of men of letters 
and of science, and, when practicable, secured them as cice- 
roni. On this accovmt his work gives more exact and full 
information in regard to the intellectual condition and scien- 
tific enterprises of the country than any similar record of the 
same date. His intellectual appetite is eager, his social affini- 
ties strong, and his love of nature instinctive : hence the vai'i- 
ety and vividness of his observations. He describes a simset 
and a political fete, analyzes a sermon as weU as a theory, 
can feel the meditative charm of Gray's Elegy while roam- 
ing, on an autumn afternoon, through Mount Auburn, and 
patiently investigate the results of the penitentiary system in 
a model prison. Observatories, ornithological museums, the 
maps of the Coast Survey, the trophies of the Patent Office, 
private libraries and characters, the antiquities of the West 
and the social privileges of the East, schools, sects, botanical 
sj^ecimens, machines, the physiognomy of cities and the 
aspects of primeval nature, embryo settlements and the 
process of an election, an opera or a waterfall — are each and 
all described and discussed with intelligence and sympathy. 
He recalled Irving's humorous description of New York at 
the sight of a Dutch mansion ; examined the process of the 
sugar manufactm-e in Louisiana, discussed glaciers and geol- 
ogy with Agassiz, jurisprudence with Kent, Mississippi 
mounds with Davis, and the AUiambra with Irving. He 
contrasts the German and New England character in Ohio, 
traces the history of parties and the character of statesmen 
at Washington, and utters his calm but earnest protest 
against slavery while describing the hospitality of Carolina. 
He portrays with care and feeling the representative charac- 
ters of the land, and is picturesque in his scenic descriptions, 
drawing felicitous comparisons from his experience in Italy 
and the East. He calls Agassiz a veritable enfant des Alpes, 
and Sparks the American Plutarch ; recognizes the military 



FRENCH TEAVELLEKS AND WEITEES. 145 

instinct of the nation, since so remarkably manifest, and 
aptly refers to Volney, Chateaubriand, and other French 
travellers. Sometimes his distinctions are fanciful : as "when 
he attributes the different aspects under Avhich he saw Long- 
fellow and Bryant — the one in his pleasant country house, 
and the other at his editorial desk — to political instead of 
professional causes ; but, usually, his insight is as sagacioug 
as his observation is candid. He writes always like a scholar 
and a gentleman, and, as such, is justly revolted by the indif- 
ference exhibited toward travellers in this country, on the 
part of those in charge of public conveyances. He truly 
declares the absence of indications and information in this 
regard a disgrace to our civilization, and gives some strik- 
ing examples of personal inconvenience, discomfort, and 
hazard thus incurred. Indeed, when we remember that 
Ampere, during his sojourn among us, was more or less of an 
invalid, his good nature and charitable spirit are magnani- 
mous, when left to Avander in wet and darkness from one car 
to another, obliged to pass sleepless nights on board of 
steamers recklessly propelled and overloaded, robbed of his 
purse at a Presidential levee, and subjected to so many other 
vexations. He was much interested in discovering what he 
calls a ve'me europeenne pervading the educated classes, and 
was agreeably surprised to find so often an identity of cul- 
ture between his old friends in Europe and new ones in 
America, which made him feel at home and at ease. He pro- 
tests against the bombastic appellatives to which the Ameri- 
cans are prone. He was gratified to find his illustrious 
father's scientific labors recognized by a professor at the 
Smithsonian Institute, and his OAvn archaeological research by 
a lecturer at New Orleans. The sound of the bell saluting 
Moimt Vernon, as he glided down the Potomac, touched him 
as did the " tintement de I'Angelus dans la campagne Eo- 
niaine." He felt, like most of his countrymen, the " tristesse 
du dimanche " in America, but, unlike them, found congenial 
emplo}'Tnent in a critical examination of the hymns, the homi- 
lies, and the character of the various denominations of Prot- 
7 



146 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

estaat Christians. Amused at the universality of the term 
" lady " applied to the female sex in America, he yet soop 
learned to recognize, in this deference, a secret of the social 
order where no rank organizes and restrains. Quakers and 
Mormons, cotton and architecture, aqueducts and Indians, 
Niagara and the prairies, a slave auction and a congressional 
debate, are with equal justice and sensibility considered in 
this pleasant " Promenade en Amerique," which extends from 
Canada to Cuba and Mexico, and abounds in evidences of the 
humane sympathies, the literary accomplishment, and the 
social philosophy of the author. 

One of the most deservedly popular French economical 
works on the United States is that of Michael Chevalier. It 
contains valuable and comparatively recent statistical infor- 
mation, and is written with care, and, in general, with liberal- 
ity and discrimination. The " Voyage dans I'Interieure des 
Etats Unis," by M. Bayard (Paris, 1779) ; Godfrey de 
Vigny's "Six Months in America" (London, 1833); the 
" Essais Historiques et Politiques sur les Anglo-Americahies," 
by M. Hilliard d'Ubertail (Brussels, 1781), and the " Re- 
cherches " on the same subject, by " un citoyen de Virginie " 
(Mazzei), as well as the account of the United States fur- 
nished " L'Univers, ou Histoire et Descriptions des Tons les 
Peuples " — a work of valuable reference, by M. Roux, who 
was formerly French Minister in this country, of which he 
gives a copious though condensed account — are among the 
many works more or less superseded as authorities, yet all 
containing some salient jioints of observation or suggestive 
reasoning. " Lk Spectateur Americaine," of Mandrillon, 
Cartier's " Nouvelle France," Bonnet's " Etats Unis a la fin 
du 18'"' Centurie," Beaujour's " Aper^u des Etats Unis," 
Gentry's " Influence of the Discovery of America," and 
Grasset's " Encyclopedic des Voyages," afibrd many sugges- 
tive and some original facts and speculations. Lavasseur's 
" Lafayette in America," * and Count O'Mahony's " Lettres 

* "Lafayette in America in 18 24-' 2 5 ; or, A Journal of a Voyage to the 
United States," by A. Lavasseur, Secretary to General Lafayette, 2 vols., 
12mo.,Philadelpbia, 1829 



FBENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 14:7 

sur les Etats Unis," contain some curious details and useful 
material. To these may be added, as more or less worthy of 
attention, of the earlier records, the " Memoires de Baron 
La Honton," * and later, the " Observations upon Florida," by 
Vignoles,f and the volumes of Claviere, $outel, Engle, Fran- 
chere, Palessier, Bossu, Hariot, Chabert, Bouchet, Hurt- 
Binet, &c. 

Besides the more formal records of tours in America, 
and episodes of military memoirs devoted thereto, the inci- 
dental personal references in the correspondence of the gal- 
lant officers and noblemen of France who mingled in our best 
local society, at the Revolutionary era, afford vivid glimpses 
of manners and character, such as an ingenious modern 
novelist would find admirable and authentic materiel. It was 
a period when repubUcan simphcity coalesced with the refine- 
ments of education and the prestige of old-school mannei'S, 
and therefore afforded the most salient traits. Some of ihe 
most ardent tributes to American women of that date were 
written from Newport, in Rhode Island, by their Gallic 
admirers ; and in these spontaneous descriptions, when 
strijDped of rhetorical exaggeration, we discern a state of 
society and a phase of character endeared to all lovers of 
humanity, and trace both, in no small degree, to the institu- 
tions and local influences of the country. The Due de Lau- 
zun, when sent into Berkshire County, because his knowledge 
of English made his services as an envoy more available than 
those of his brother officers, seems to regard the errand as 
little better than exile, and says, " Lebanon can only be com- 
pared to Siberia." Attached to the society of Newport, and 
domesticated with the Hunter family, he is never weary of 
expatiating upon the sweetness, purity, and grace of the 
women of " that charming spot regretted by all the army." 
/ 

* La Honton's (Baron) " Memoires de I'Anierique Septeutrionale, ou la Suite 
des Voyages, avec un petit Dictionnaire de la Langue du Pais," 2 tomes, 12mo., 
map and plates, Amsterdam, 1705. 

f Vignoles' (Charles) " Observations upon the Floridas," 8vo., New York, 
1823. 



148 AJyiEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 

And when De Vauban there introduced the Prince de Bro- 
glie to a pretty Quakei'ess, the former writes that he " sud- 
denly beheld the goddess of grace and beauty — Minerva in 
person." It is a striking illustration of the social instinct 
of the French, that manners, character, and personal ap- 
pearance occupy so large a space in their commentaries on 
America. 

" Other parts of America," says another officer, " were 
only beautiful by anticipation ; but the prosperity of Rhode 
Island was already complete. l!Nre"vsT3ort, well and regularly 
built, contained a numerous population. It offered delightful 
circles, composed of enlightened men and modest and hand- 
some women, whose talents heightened their personal attrac- 
tions." This was in 1782, ere the commercial importance 
of the port had been sitperseded, and when the belles of the 
town were the toast and the triumph of every circle. La 
Rochefoucault and other French tourists, at a later period, 
found the prosperity of the town on the wane, and the social 
distinction modified ; yet none the less attractive and valuable 
are the fresh and fanciful but sincere testimonies to genuine 
and superior human graces and gifts, of the French memoirs. 

But such casual illustrations of the candid and kindly 
observation of our gallant allies, fade before the consistent 
and intelligent tributes of Lafayette, whose relation to 
America is one of the most beautiful historical episodes of 
modern times. After his youthful championship in the field, 
and his mature counsels, intercessions, and triumphant advo- 
cacy of our cause in France (for, " during the period," says 
Mr. Everett, " which intervened, from the peace of '83 to 
the organization of the Federal Government, Lafayette per- 
formed, in substance, the functions of our Minister"), when 
forty years had elapsed, he revisited tlie land for which he 
had foi^ght in youth, to witness the physical and social, the 
moral and intellectual fruits of " liberty protected by law." 
And during this whole period, and to the time of his death, 
he was in correspondence, first with "Washington and the 
leading men of the Revolution, and later with various per- 



FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND AVRITERS. 149 

sonal friends. In his letters from and to America, there is 
constant indirect testimony to and illustration of the charac- 
ter of the people, the tendencies of opinion, the means and 
methods of life and government, founded on observation, 
intercourse, and sympathy, and endeared and made emphatic 
by his devotion to our spotless chief, his sacrifices for our 
cause, and his unswerving devotion to our political prin- 
ciples ; in a word, by his vigilant and faithful love of 
America. 

In 1824, De Pradt, formerly archbishop of Malines, and 
deputy to the Constituent Assembly from Normandy, a volu- 
minous political wTiter, published " L'Europe et I'Amerique," 
in two volumes, the third of his works on this subject, " in 
which he gives an historical view of the principles of gov- 
ernment in the Old and Now Worlds." Judicious critics pro- 
nounce his style verbose and incorrect, and his views partial 
and shallow. His motto is, " Le genre hiunain est en marche 
et rien ne le fera retrograder." 

Several of the French Protestant clergy have visited the 
United States within the last few years, and some of them 
have put on record their impressions, chiefly with regard to 
the actual state of religion. In many instances, however, the 
important fiicts on this subject have been dra"\m from the 
copious and authentic American work of Dr. Baird.* Among 
books of this class, are " L'Amerique Protestante," par M. 
Rey, and the sketches of M. Grandpierre and M. Fisch. 
The latter's observations on Religion in America, originally 
appeared in the " Revue Chretien," but were subsequently 
embodied in a small volume, which includes observations on 
other themes.f 

The latter work, though limited in scope, and the fruit of 
a brief visit, has an interest derived from the circumstance 
that the worthy pasteur arrived just before the fall of Sum- 
tei", and was an eyewitness and a conscientious though terse 
reporter of the aspects of that memorable period. He recog- 

* " Religion in America," by Robert Baird, D. D. 

f " Les Etats Unis en 1861," par Georges Fiscb, Paris, 1862. 



150 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

njzes in the Americans " iiii peuple qui n'avait d'autre force 
publique que celle des idees ;" and deprecates the hasty judg- 
ment and perverse ignorance so prevalent in Europe in regard 
to " ime grande lutte ou se debattant les int^rets les plus 
eleves de la morale et de la religion ; " and justly affirms that 
it is, in fact, " le choc de deux civilizations et de deux re- 
ligions." M. Fisch, however, disclaims all intention of a 
complete analysis of national character. His book is mainly 
devoted to an account of the religious organization, condi- 
tion, and prospects of America, especially as seen from his 
own point of view. Many of the details on this subject are 
not only correct, but suggestive. He writes in a liberal and 
conscientious spirit. His sjTnpathies are Christian, and he 
descants on education and faith in the United States with 
intelligent and candid zeal. Indeed, he was long at a loss to 
understand what provision existed in society to check and 
calm the irresponsible and exuberant energy, the heterogene- 
ous elements, and the self-reliance around him, until con- 
vinced that the latent force of these great conservative prin- 
ciples of human society were the guarantee of order and 
pledge of self-control. There is no people, he observes, who 
have been judged in so superficial a manner. America he 
regards as having all the petulance of youth, all the naivete 
of inexperience : all there is incomplete — in the process of 
achievement. This w^as his earliest impression on landing at 
New York, the scene whereof was " un bizarre melange de 
sauvagerie et de civilization." But, after his patience had 
been nearly exhausted, he entered the city, emerging with 
agreeable surprise from muddy and noisome streets into 
Broadway, to find palaces of six or seven stories devoted to 
commerce, and to admire " les figures fines et gracieuses, la 
demarche legiire et libre des femmes, les allures vives de toute 
la population." The frank hospitality with which he was 
received, and the interesting study of his specialite as a trav- 
eller, soon enlarged and deepened his impressions. He has a 
chapter on "La lutte presidentielle " which resulted in Lin- 
coln's election, the phenomena whereof he briefly describes. 



I 



FKENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 151 

Then we have a sketch entitled " Statistique religieuse des 
Etats Unis ;" followed by judicious comments on the " Unite 
de I'Eglise Amt^ricaine, son esprit et son influence." He 
considers Henry Ward Beecher an improvisatore — " mais c'est 
I'improvisation du genie;" and says, " L'on va entendre M. 
Beecher comme on irait a theatre." He describes succmctly 
the system of public instruction ; alludes to the progress of 
art and letters ; expatiates on Venergie and Vaitdace of the 
Americans ; is anecdotical and descriptive ; praises the land- 
scapes of Church and the sculpture of Crawford, Powers, 
and Palmer ; gives a chapter to the " Caractere national," 
and another to " L'esclaA-age aux Etats Unis;" closing with 
hopeful auguries for the futui-e of the country under " le 
r^veil de la conscience," wherein he sees the cause and scope 
of "la crise actuelle;" declaring that " la vie puissante de 
I'Amerique reprendra son paisible cours. Elle pourra se 
reprendre avec une puissance incom2:)arable sur une terre 
reuouvelee, et le monde apjirendra une fois de plus que TEvan- 
gile est la salut des nations, comme il est celui des individus." 
Brochures innumerable, devoted to special phases of 
American life, facts of individual exjjerience, and themes of 
social speculation, swell the catalogue raisonnee of French 
writings in this department, and, if not of great value, often 
furnish salient anecdotes or remarks ; as, for instance, M. 
August Carlier's amusing little treatise on " La Mariage aux 
•Etats Unis," the statement of one voyageur who happened to 
behold for the first time a dish of currie, that the Amedcans 
eat their rice Avith mustard, and the disgust natural to one 
accustomed to the rigorous municipal regime of Paris, ex- 
pressed by Maurice Sand, at the exposure, for three days, 
of a dead horse in the streets of Ncav York. Xavier Eyma's 
"Vie dans le Nouveau Monde" (Paris, 1861) is one of the 
most recent elaborate works, of which a judicious ci'itical 
authority observes : 

" He has given tvro goodly octavos to a solid criticism and descrip- 
tion of American ' men and institutions ; ' two more octavos to a liis- 
tory of the States and Territories; one volume to the 'Black-Skins,' 



152 AMERICA AND UEK COMMENTATORS. 

in which he sketches with admirable fidelity the peculiarities and the 
iniquities of slave life in the South ; and one volume to the ' Eed- 
Skins,' in which he shows the Indian tribes as they are. Besides 
these, he has told of the islands of the "West Indies, of their corsairs 
and buccaneers, and of the social life of the various classes in Amer- 
icfl, native and immigrant, and has devoted one amusing volume to 
' American Eccentricities.' In such a mass of material there must of 
course be repetition ; nor are any of the views especially profound. 
M. Eyma is in no sense a philosopher. He loves story-telling better 
than disquisition, and arranges his materials rather for romantic effect 
than for scientific accuracy." 

Finally, we have the prolific emanations of the Paris 
press on the war for the Union ; pamphlets evoked by venal- 
ity, abounding in sophistical arguments, gross misstatements, 
and prejudice ; editorials written in the interest of partisans, 
and a mass of crude and unauthentic writing destined to 
speedy oblivion. A valuable contribution to the national cause 
was made, of late, by our able and loyally assiduous consul 
at Paris,* in a volume of facts, economical, political, and sci- 
entific, dra^Ti from the latest and best authorities, published 
in the French language, and affording candid inquirers in 
Europe jarecisely the kind of information about America they 
need, to counteract the falsehood and malignity of the advo- 
cates of the slaveholders' rebellion. Army critics and corre- 
spondents from France, some of them illustrious and others 
of ephemeral claims, have visited our shores, and reported 
the momentous crisis through which the nation is now pass- 
ing. The Prince de Joinville has given his experience and 
observation of the battles of the Chickahominy ; and several 
pleasant but superficial writers have described some of the 
curious phases of life which here caught their attention, dur- 
ing a hasty visit at this transition epoch. Apart from -viru- 
lent and mercenary writers, it is remarkable that the tone of 
French comment and criticism on the jDresent rebellion in 
America has been far more intelligent, candid, and sympa- 
thetic than across the Channel. Eminent publicists and pro- 
fessors of France have recognized and vindicated the truth, 

* John Bigelow, Esq. 



FEENCH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 153 

and sent words of faith and cheer across the sea. In his lec- 
tures, and extravagant but piquant and suggestive " Paris 
dans I'Amerique," Laboulaye has signally promoted that bet- 
ter understanding and more just aj^preciation of the struggle, 
and the motives and end thereof, which now begin to pre- 
vail abroad. De Gasparin's " Uprising of a Great People " 
fell on American hearts, at the darkest hour of the strife, 
like the clarion note of a reenforcement of the heroes of 
humanity. Cochin, Henri Martin, and others less eminent 
but equally honest and humane, have echoed the earnest pro- 
test and appeal ; which contrasts singularly with the indiffer- 
ence, disingenuousness, and perversity of so many distin- 
guished writers and journals in England. Herein we per- 
ceive the same diversity of feeling which marks the earliest 
commentatoi's of the respective nations on America, and the 
subsequent feelings manifested toward our prosperous repuD- 
lic. Mrs. Kemble, in a recent article on the " Stage," ob- 
serves that the theatrical instinct of the Americans creates 
with them an affinity for the French, in which the English, 
hating exhibitions of emotion and self-display, do not share. 
"With all due deference to her opinion, it seems to us her rea- 
soning is quite too limited. The affinity of which she speaks, 
partial as it is, is based on the more sympathetic temperament 
of these two races compared with the English. The social 
character, the more versatile experience of American life, 
assimilate it in a degree, and externally, with that of France, 
and the climate of America develops nervous sensibility ; 
while the exigencies of life foster an adajDtive facility, which 
brings the Anglo-American into more intelligent relations 
with the Gallic nature than is possible for a people so egotis- 
tic and stolid as the English to realize. But this partial sym- 
pathy does not altogether account for the French imderstand- 
ing Ameiica better : that is owing to a more liberal, a less 
prejudiced, a more chivalric spirit ; to quicker sympathies, to 
more scientific proclivities, to greater candor and humanity 
among her thinkers. They are far enough removed in life 
and character to catch the true moral perspective ; and they 



154 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

have few, if any, wounds of self-love to impede their sense 
of justice in regard to a country wherewith their own history 
is often congenially and honorably associated. 

Yet anomalous and sad will it seem, in the retrospect, 
that to a nation alien in blood and language, we are indebted 
for the earliest and most kindly greeting in our hour of stern 
and sacrificial duty and of national sorrow, instead of receiv- 
ing it (with rare exceptions) from a people from Avhom we 
inherit laws, language, and literature, and to whom we are 
united by so many ties of lineage, culture, and material 
interests. 

Humane, just, and authoritative, indeed, is the language 
of those eminent Frenchmen, Agenor de Gasparin, Augustin 
Cochin, Edouard Laboulaye, and Henri Martin, addi'essed to 
a committee of loyal Americans, in response to their grateful 
recognition of such distinguished advocacy of our national 
cause ; and we cannot better close this notice of French 
writers on America, than with their noble Avords : 

" Courage! You have before you one of the most noble works, 
the most sublime which can be accomplished here below — a work in 
the success of which we are as interested as yourselves — a work the 
success of which will be the honor and the consolation of our time. 

" This generation will have seen nothing more grand than the 
abolition of slavery (in destroying it with you, you destroy it every- 
where), and the energetic uprising of a people which in the midst of 
its growing prosperity was visibly sinking under the weight of the 
tyranny of the South, the complicity of the North, odious laws and 
compromises. 

" Now, at the cost of immense sacrifices, you have stood up against 
the evil ; you have chosen rather to pour out your blood and your 
dollars than to descend further the slope of degradation, where rich, 
united, powerful, you were sure to lose that which is far nobler than 
wealth, or union, or power. 

" "Well, Europe begins to understand, willingly or unwillingly, 
what you have done. In France, in England, everywhere your cause 
gains ground, and be it said for the honor of the nineteenth century, 
the obstacle which our ill will and our evil passions could not over- 
come, the obstacle which the intrigues of the South could not sur- 
mount, is an idea, a principle. Hatred of slavery has been your cham- 
pion in the Old World. A poor champion seemingly. Laughed at, 



FRENCH TRAVELLERS AND "WRITERS. 155 

scorned, it seems weak and lonely. But what matters it ; ere the 
account be closed, principles will stand for something, and conscience, 
in all human aftairs, will have the last word. 

" This, gentlemen, is what we would say to you in the name of all 
who with us, and better than ourselves, defend your cause in Europe. 
Your words have cheered us ; may ours in turn cheer you ! You 
have yet to cross many a dark valley. More than once the impossi- 
bility of success will be demonstrated to you; more than once, in the 
face of some military check or political difficulty, the cry will be raised 
that all is lost. "What matters it to you ? Strengthen your cause 
daily by daily making it more just, and fear not ; there is a God 
above. 

" We love to contemplate in hope the noble future which seems 
to stretch itself before you. The day you emerge at last from the 
anguish of civil war — and you av ill surely come out freed from the 
odious institution which corrupted your public manners and degraded 
your domestic as well as your foreign policy — that day your whole 
country, South as well as North, and the South perhaps more fully 
than the Xorth, will enter upon a Avholly new prosperity. European 
emigration will hasten toward your ports, and will learn the road to 
those whom until now it has feared to approach. Cultivation, now 
abandoned, will renew its yield. Liberty — for these are her miracles 
— will revivify by her touch the soil which slavery had rendered 
barren. 

" Then there will be born unto you a greatness nobler and more 
stable than the old, for in this greatness there will be no sacrifice of 
justice." 



CHAPTEK V. 

BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 

BERKELEY ; MCgPARUAN ; MRS. GRAKT ; BURNABY ; ROGERS ; BURKE ; 
DOUGLASS ; HENRY ; EDDIS ; ANBURY ; SMYTHE. 

" Theee * are more imposing monuments in the venerable 
precincts of Oxford, recalling the genius which hallows our 
ancestral literature, but at the tomb of Berkeley we linger 
with affectionate reverence, as we associate the gifts of his 
mind and the graces of his spirit with his disinterested and 
memorable visit to our country. 

In 1725, Berkeley published his proposals in explanation 
of this long-cherished purj)ose ; at the same time he offered 
to resign his livings, and to consecrate the remainder of his 
days to this Christian undertaking. So magnetic were his 
appeal and example, that three of his brother fellows at 
Oxford decided to unite with him in the expedition. Many 
eminent and wealthy persons were induced to contribute 
their influence and money to the cause. But he did not trust 
wholly to such means. Having ascertained the worth of a 
portion of the St. Christopher's lands, ceded by Frauce to 
Great Britain by the treaty of Utrecht, and about to be dis- 
posed of for pubHc advantage, he undertook to realize from 
them larger proceeds than had been anticipated, and sug- 

* From the author's " Essays, Biographical and Critical." 



BRITISH TEAVELLERS AND "WRITERS. 157 

gested that a certain amount of these funds should be de- 
voted to his college. Availing himself of the friendly inter- 
vention of a Venetian gentleman whom he had known in 
Italy, he submitted the plan to George I., who directed Sir 
Robert Walpole to carry it through Parliament. He ob- 
tained a charter for ' erecting a college, by name St. Paul's, 
in Bermuda, with a president and nine fellows, to maintain 
and educate Indian scholars, at the rate of ten poxmds a year, 
George Berkeley to be the first president, and his companions 
from Trinity College the fellows.' His commission was voted 
May 1 1th, 1 726. To the promised amount of twenty thousand 
pounds, to be derived from the land sale, many suras were 
added from individual donation. The letters of Berkeley to 
his friends, at this period, are filled with the discussion of his 
scheme ; it absorbed his time, taxed his ingenuity, filled his 
heart, and drew forth the warm sympathy and earnest 
cooperation of his many admirers, though regret at the pros- 
pect of losing his society constantly finds expression. Swift, 
in a note to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, says : ' I do hum- 
bly entreat your excellency either to use such persuasions as 
will keep one of the first men of the kingdom for learning 
and genius at home, or assist him by your credit to compass 
his romantic design.' ' I haA'e obtained reports,' says one of 
his own letters, ' from the Bishop of London, the board of 
trade and plantations, and the attorney and solicitor-general ; ' 
' yesterday the charter passed the privy seal ; ' ' the lord chan- 
cellor is not a busier man than myself ; ' and elsewhere, ' I 
have had more opposition from the governors and traders to 
America than from any one else ; but, God be praised, there 
is an end of all their narrow and mercantile views and en- 
deavors, as well as of the jealousies and suspicions of others, 
some of Avhom were very great men, who apprehended this 
college may produce an independency in America, or at least 
lessen her dependency on England.' 

Freneau's ballad of the ' Indian Boy,' who ran back to 
the woods from the halls of learning, was written subse- 
quently, or it might have discouraged Berkeley in his idea of 



158 



AMERICA AND IIER COMMENTATORS. 



the capacity of the American savages for education ; but 
more positive obstacles thwarted his generous aims. The 
king died before affixing his seal to the charter, which de- 
layed the whole proceedings. Walpole, efficient as he was as 
a financier and a servant of the house of Brmiswick, was a 
thorough utilitarian, and too practical and worldly wise to 
share in the disinterested enthusiasm of Berkeley. In his 
answer to Bishop Gibson, whose diocese included the West 
Indies, when he applied for the funds so long withheld, he 
says : ' If you put th6 question to me as a minister, I must 
assure you that the money shall most undoubtedly be paid as 
soon as suits with public convenience ; but if you ask me as a 
friend whether Dean Berkeley should continue in America, 
expecting the payment of twenty thousand poimds, I ad\dse 
him by all me^ns to return to Europe.' To the project, thus 
rendered unattainable, Berkeley had devoted seven years of 
his life, and. the greater part of his fortune. The amoimt 
realized by the sale of confiscated lands was about ninety 
thousand pounds, of which eighty thousand were devoted to 
the marriage portion of the princess royal, about to espouse 
the Prince of Orange ; and the remainder, through the influ- 
ence of Oglethorpe, was secured to pay for the transporta- 
tion of emigrants to his Georgia colony. Berkeley's scheme 
was more deliberate and well-considered than is commonly 
believed. Horace Walpole calls it ' uncertain and amusing ; ' 
but a wi'iter of deeper sympathies declares it ' too grand and 
pure for the powers that were.' His nature craved the united 
opportunities of usefulness and of self-culture. He felt the 
obligation to devote himself to benevolent enterprise, and at 
the same time earnestly desired both the leisure and the re- 
tirement needful for the pursuit of abstract studies. The 
prospect he contemplated promised to reaUze all these 
objects. He possessed a heart to feel the infinite wants, 
intellectual and religious, of the new continent, and had the 
imagination to conceive the grand destinies awaiting its 
growth. Those who fancy that his views were limited to 
the plan of a doubtful missionary experiment, do great injus- 



BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 159 

tice to the broad and elevated hopes he chei-ished. He knew 
that a recognized seat of learning open to the poor and im- 
civilized, and the varied moral exigencies of a new country, 
would insure ample scope for the exercise of all his erudition 
and his talents. He felt that his mind would he a kingdom 
wherever his lot was cast ; and he was inspired by a noble 
interest in the progress of America, and a faith in the new 
field there open for the advancement of truth, as is evident 
from the celebrated verses in which these feelings found ex- 
pression : 

' The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime 
Barren of every glorious theme, 
In distant lands now waits a better time^ 
Producing subjects worthy fame. 

' In happy climes, when from the genial sun 

And virgin earth such scenes ensue, 
The force of art by nature seems outdone, 
And fancied beauties by the true ; 

' In happy climes, the seat of innocence, 

Where nature guides and virtue rules ; 
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense 
The pedantry of schools ; 

' Then shall we see again the golden age, 
The rise of empire and of arts, 
The good and great inspiring epic rage, 
The wisest heads and noblest hearts ; 

' Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ; 

Such as she bred when fresh and young. 
When heavenly flame did animate her clay, 
By future poets shall be sung. 

' Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 

The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall end the drama with the day ; 
Time's noblest otfspring is the last.' 

In August, 1728, Berkeley married a daughter of the 
Honorable John Foster, speaker of the Irish House of Com- 



160 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

mens, and, soon after, embarked for America. His compan- 
ions were, his wife and her friend, Miss Hancock ; two gen- 
tlemen of fortune, James and Dalton ; and Smibert the 
painter. In a picture by the latter, now in the Trmnbull 
gallery at New Haven, are preserved the porti'aits of this 
group, with that of the dean's infant son, Henry, in his 
mother's arms. It was painted for a gentleman of Boston, 
of whom it was purchased, in 1808, by Isaac Lothrop, Esq., 
and presented to Yale College. This visit of Smibert asso- 
ciates Berkeley's name with the dawn of art in America. 
They had travelled together in Italy, and the dean induced 
him to join the expedition partly from friendship, and also to 
enlist his services as instructor in drawing and architecture, 
in the proposed college. Smibert was born in Edinburgh, 
about the year 1684, and served an apprenticeship there to 
a house painter. He went to London, and, from painting 
coaches, rose to copying old pictures for the dealers. He 
then gave three years to the study of his art in Italy. 

' Smibert,' says Horace Walpole, ' was a silent and mod- 
est man, who abhorred the finesse of some of his profession, 
and was enchanted with a plan that he thought promised 
tranquillity and an honest subsistence in a healthy and elysian 
climate, and, in spite of remonstrances, engaged with the 
dean, whose zeal had ranged the favor of the court on his 
side. The king's death dispelled the vision. One may con- 
ceive how a man so devoted to his art must have been ani- 
mated, when the dean's enthusiasm and eloquence painted to 
his imagination a new theatre of prospects, rich, warm, and 
glowing with scenery which no pencil had yet made com- 
mon.' * 

Smibert was the first educated artist who visited our 
shores, and the picture referred to, the first of more than a 
single figure executed in the country. To his pencil New 
England is indebted for portraits of many of her early states- 
men and clergy. Among others, he painted for a Scotch 

* " Anecdotes of Painting," vol. iii. 



BKITISn TKAVELLEKS AND -WEITEES. 161 

gentleman the only authentic likeness of Jonathan Edwards. 
He married a lady of fortune in Boston, and left her a widow 
Avith two children, in 1751. A high eulogium on his abilities 
and character appeared in the London Coiirant. From two 
letters addressed to him by Berkeley, when residing at 
Cloyne, published in the Gentlemmi's Magazine^ it would 
appear that his friendship for the artist continued after their 
separation, as the bishop urges the painter to recross the sea 
and establish himself in his neighborhood. 

A considerable simi of money, and a large and choice 
collection of books, designed as a foundation for the library 
of St. Paul's College, were the most important itetas of the 
dean's outfit. In these days of rapid transit across the 
Atlantic, it is not easy to realize the discomforts and perils 
of such a voyage. Brave and philanthropic, indeed, must 
have been the heart of an English church dignitary, to whom 
the road of preferment was open, who was a favorite com- 
panion of the genial Steele, the classic Addison, and the bril- 
liant Pope, who basked in the smile of royalty, was beloved 
of the Cliurch, revered by the poor, the idol of society, and 
the peer of scholars ; yet could shake oif the allurements of 
such a position, to endure a tedioiis voyage, a long exile, and 
the deprivations attendant on a crude state of society and a 
new civilization, in order to achieve an object which, how- 
ever excellent and genei'ous in itself, was of doubtful issue, 
and beset with obstacles. Confiding in the pledges of those 
in authority, that the parliamentary grant would be paid 
when the lands had been selected, and full of the most san- 
guine anticipations, the noble pioneer of religion and letters 
approached the shores of the New World. 

It seems doubtful to some of his biogra])]iers whether 
Berkeley designed to make a preliminary visit to Rhode 
Islandj in order to purchase lands there, the income of which 
wguld sustain his Bermuda institution. The vicinity of that 
part of the New England coast to the West Indies may have 
induced such a course ; but it is declared by more than one, 
that his arrival at Newport was quite accidental. This con- 



162 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

jecture, however, is erroneous, as in one of his letters, dated 
September 5th, 1V28, he says : ' To-morrow, with God's bless- 
ing, I set sail for Rhode Island.' The captain of the ship 
which conveyed him from England, it is said, was unable to 
discover the Island of Bermuda, and at length abandoned the 
attempt, and steered in a northerly direction. They made 
land which they could not identify, and supposed it inhabited 
only by Indians. It proved, however, to be Block Island, 
and two fishermen came off and informed them of the vicin- 
ity of Newport harbor. Under the pilotage of these men, 
the vessel, in consequence of an imfavorable wind, entered 
what is called the West Passage, and anchored. The fisher- 
men were sent ashore with a letter from the dean to Rev. 
James Honyman. They landed at Canonicut Island, and 
sought the dwellings of two parishioners of that gentleman, 
who immediately conveyed the letter to their pastor. For 
nearly half a century this faithful clergyman had labored in 
that region. He first established himself at Newport, in 
1V04. Besides the care of his own church, he made frequent 
visits to the neighboring towns on the mainland. In a letter 
to the secretary of the Episcopal mission in America, in 1709, 
he says : ' You can neitbet- believe, nor I express, what excel- 
lent services for the cause of religion a bishop would do in 
these parts ; these infant settlements would become beautiful 
nurseries, which now seem to languish for want of a father 
to oversee and bless them ; ' and in a memorial to Governor 
Nicholson on the religious condition of Rhode Island, in 
1714, he observes : ' The people are divided among Quakers, 
Anabaptists, Independents, Gortonians, and infidels, with a 
Bemnant of true Churchmen.' * It is characteristic of the 
times and region, that with a broad circuit and isolated 
churches as the sphere of his labors, the vicinity of Indians, 
and the variety of sects, he was employed for two months, in 
1723, in daily attending a large number of pirates who had 

* Hawkins's " Ilistorical Notices of the Missions of the Church of England 
in the North American Colonies," p. 173. 



I 



BRITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 163 

been captured, and were subsequently executed — one of the 
murderous bands which then infested the coast, whose extra- 
ordinary career has been illustrated by Cooper, in one of his 
popular nautical romances. 

When Berkeley's missive reached this worthy pastor, 
he was in his pulpit, it being a holiday. He immediately 
read the letter to his congregation, and dismissed them. 
Nearly all accompanied him to the feriy wharf, which they 
reached but a few moments before the arrival of the dean 
and his fellow voyagers. A letter from Newport, dated 
January 24th, 1729, that appeared in the Neio England 
Journal^ published at Boston, thus notices the event : ' Yes- 
terday arrived here Dean Berkeley, of Londonderry, in a 
pretty large ship. He is a gentleman of middle stature, and 
of an agreeable, pleasant, and erect aspect. He was ushered 
into the town by a great number of gentlemen, to whom he 
behaved himself after a very complaisant manner. 'Tis said 
he purposes to tarry here about three months.' 

We can easily imagine the delightful surprise which 
Berkeley acknowledges at first view of that lovely bay and 
the adjacent country. The water tinted, in the clear autumn 
air, like the Mediterranean ; the fields adorned with sjinmet- 
rical haystacks and golden maize, and bounded by a lucid 
horizon, against which rose picturesque windmills and the 
clustered dwellings of the town, and the noble trees which 
then covered the island ; the bracing yet tempered atmos- 
phere, all greeted the senses of those weary voyagers, and 
kindled the grateful admiration of their romantic leader. 
He soon resolved upon a longer sojourn, and purchased a 
farm of a hundred acres at the foot of the hill whereon 
stood the dwelling of Honyman, and which still bears his 
name.* 

There he erected a modest homestead, with philosophic 
taste choosing the valley, in order to enjoy the fine view from 

* The conveyance from Joseph Whipple and wife to Berkeley, of the land 
in Newport, is dated February 18th, 1729. 



.> 



164 A]SIEEICA AND HER COMMENT ATOKS. 

the summit occasionally, rather than lose its charm by 
familiarity. At a sufficient distance from the town to insure 
immunity from idle visitors ; within a few minutes' walk of 
the sea, and girdled by a fertile vale, the student, dreamer, 
and missionary pitched his hmnble tent where nature offered 
her boundless refreshment, and seclusion her contemplative 
peace. His first vivid impressions of the situation, and of 
the difficulties and consolations of his position, are described 
in the few letters, dated at Newport, which his biographer 
cites. At this distance of time, and in view of the subse- 
quent changes of that region, it is both curious and interest- 
ing to revert to these incidental data of Berkeley's visit. 

.' Newport, in Rhode Island, April 24, 1729. 

' I can by this time say something to you, from my own expe- 
rience, of this place and its people. Tlie inhabitants are of a mixed 
kind, consisting of many sects and subdivisions of sects. Here are 
four sorts of Anabaptists, besides Presbyterians, Quakers, Indepen- 
dents, and many of no profession at all. Notwithstanding so many 
diiferences, here are fewer quarrels about religion than elsewhere, 
the people living peacefully with their neighbors of whatever per- 
suasion. They all agree in one point — that the Church of England 
is the second best. The climate is like that of Italy, and not at all 
colder in the winter than I have known everywhere north of Rome. 
The spring is late, but, to make amends, they assure me the au- 
tumns are the finest and the longest in the world ; and the sum- 
mers are much pleasanter than those of Italy by all accounts, foras- 
much as the grass continues green, which it does not there. This 
island is pleasantly laid out in hills and vales and rising ground, hath 
plenty of excellent springs and fine rivulets, and many delightful 
rocks, and promontories, and adjacent lands. The provisions are 
very good ; so are the fruits, which are quite neglected, though vines 
sprout of themselves of an extraordinary size, and seem as natural 
to this soil as any I ever saAv. The town of Newport contains about 
six thousand souls, and is the most thriving place in all America for 
its bigness. I was never more agreeably surprised than at the first 
sight of the town and its harbor.' 

' Jane 12, 1729. — I find it hath been reported in Ireland that 
we intend settling here. I must desire you to discountenance any 
such report. The truth is, if the king's bounty w^ere paid in, and the 
charter could be removed hitlier, I should like it better than Ber- 



BEITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 165 

muda. But if this were questioned before the payment of said 
money, it might perhaps hinder it and defeat all our designs. I 
snatch this moment to write, and have time only to add that I have 
^ot a son, who, I thank God, is likely to live.' 

' May 7. — This week I received a package from you via Phila- 
delphia, the postage of which amounted to above four pounds ster- 
ling of this country money. I am worried to death by creditors, and 
am at an end of patience, and almost out of my wits. Our little son 
is a great joy to us : we are such fools as to think him the most per- 
fect thing of the kind we ever saw.' 

To the poet, scenery of picturesque beauty and grand- 
eur is desirable, but to tlie philosopher general effects are 
more congenial. High mountains, forests, and waterfalls 
appeal more emphatically to the former, and luxuries of cli- 
mate and atmosphere to the latter. Accordingly, the soft 
marine air and the beautiful skies of summer and autumn, in 
the region of Berkeley's American home, with the vicinity 
of the seacoast, became to him a jDerpetual delight. He 
alludes, with grateful sensibility, to the ' pleasant fields,' and 
' walks on the beach,' to ' the expanse of ocean studded with 
fishing boats and lighters,' and the ' plane trees,' that daily 
cheered his sight, as awakening ' that sort of joyful instinct 
which a rural scene and fine weather inspire.' He calls New- 
port ' the Montpelier of America,' and appears to have com- 
muned with nature and inhaled the salubrious breeze, while 
pursuing his meditations, with all the zest of a healthy 
organization and a susceptible and observant mind. A few 
ravines finely wooded, and with fresh streams purling over 
rocky beds, vary the alternate uplands ; from elevated points 
a charming distribution of water enlivens the prospect ; and 
the shore is indented with high cliffs, or rovmded into grace- 
ful curves. The sunsets are remarkable for a display of gor- 
geous and radiant clouds ; the wdde sweep of pasture is only 
broken by low ranges of stone wall, clumps of sycamores, 
orchards, haystacks, and mill towers ; and over luxuriant clo- 
ver beds, tasselled maize, or fallow acres, plays, for two thirds 
of the year, a southwestern breeze, chastened and moistened 
by the Gulf Stream. 



166 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 

Intercourse with Boston was then the chief means on 
the island of acquiring poHtical and domestic news. A brisk 
trade was carried on between the town and the West Indies, 
France, England, and the Low Coimtries, curious memorials 
of which are still visible, in some of the old mansions, in the 
shape of china and glass ware, of obsolete patterns, and faded 
specimens of rich brocade. A sturdy breed of Narraganset 
ponies carried fair equestrians from one to another of the 
many hospitable dwellings scattered over the fields, on which 
browsed sheep and cackled geese, still famous in epicurean 
reminiscence ; while tropical fruits were constantly imported, 
and an abundance and variety of fish and fowl rewarded the 
most careless sportsman. Thus blessed by nature, the acci- 
dental home of the philosophic dean soon won his affection. 
Intelligent members of all denominations united in admira- 
tion of his society and attendance upon his preaching. With 
one neighbor he dined every Sunday, to the child of another 
he became godfather, and with a third took counsel for the 
establishment of the literary club wLich founded the Red- 
wood Library. It was usual then to see the broad brim of 
the Quakers in the aisles of Trinity Church ; and, as an in- 
stance of his emphatic yet tolerant style, it is related that he 
once observed, in a sermon, ' Give the devil his due : John 
Calvin was a great man.' * We find him, at one time, writing 
a letter of encouragement to a Huguenot preacher of Provi- 
dence, and, at another, visiting Narraganset with Smibert to 
examine the aboriginal inhabitants. His own opinion of the 
race was given in the discourse on ' The Propagation of the 
Gospel in Foreign Parts,' delivered in London on his return. 
To the ethnologist it may be interesting, in reference to this 
subject, to revert to the anecdote of the portrait painter cited 
by Dr. Barton. He had been employed by the Grand Duke 
of Tuscany to pamt two or three Siberian Tartars, presented 
to that prince by the Czar of Russia ; and, on first landing in 
ISTarraganset with Berkeley, he instantly recognized the In- 

* Updike's " History of the Narraganset Church." 



BRITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 167 

dians there as the same race as the Siberian Tartars — an opin- 
ion confii-med by "WoliF, the celebrated Eastern traveller. 

During his residence at Newport, Berkeley became ac- 
quainted with the Rev. Jared Elliot, one of the trustees of 
Yale College, and with the Rev. Samuel Johnson, an Episco- 
pal minister of Stratford, Conn., who informed him of the 
condition, prospects, and wants of that institution. He after- 
ward opened a correspondence on the subject with Rector 
Williams, and was thus led, after the failure of his own col- 
lege scheme, to make his generous donations to a seminary 
already established. He had previously pi-esented the col- 
lege with a copy of his writings. In 1732, he sent from 
England a deed of his farm in Rhode Island, and, the con- 
ditions and descriptions not being satisfactory, he sent, the 
ensuing year, another deed, by which it was provided that 
the rents of his lands should be devoted to the education of 
three young men, the best classical scholars ; the candidates 
to be examined annually, on the 6th of May ; in case of dis- 
agreement among the examiners, the competitors to decide 
by lot ; and all surplus funds to be used for the purchase of 
classical books. Berkeley also gave to the library a thousand 
volumes, which cost over four hundred pounds — the most 
valuable collection of books then brought together in Amer- 
" ica. They were chiefly his own purchase, but in part con- 
tributed by his friends. One of the graduates of Yale, edu- 
cated under the Berkeley scholarship, was Dr. Buckminster, 
of Portsmouth, N. H. Unfortunately, the income of the 
property at Newport is rendered much less than it might be 
by the terms of a long lease. This liberality of the Bishop 
of Cloyne was enhanced by the absence of sectarian preju- 
dice in his choice for the stewardship of his bounty of a col- 
legiate institution where different tenets are inculcated from 
those he professed. That he was personally desirous of in- 
creasing his own denomination in America, is sufficiently 
evinced by the letter in which he directs the secretary of the 
Episcopal mission there to appropriate a balance originally 
contributed to the Bermuda scheme. This siun had remained 



168 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. 

at his banker's for many years unclaimed, and he suggests 
that part of it should be devoted to a gift of books for Har- 
vard University, ' as a proper means to inform their judg- 
ment, and dispose them to think better of our church.' His 
interest in classical education on this side of the water is also 
manifested in a letter advocating the preeminence of those 
studies in Columbia College.* 

It is a remarkable coincidence that Berkeley should have 
taken up his abode in Rhode Island, and thus completed the 
representative character of the most tolerant religious com- 
munity in New England, by the presence of an eminent Epis- 
copal dignitary. A principal reason of the variety, the free- 
dom, and the peace of religious opinion there, to which he 
alludes, is the fact that, through the liberal wisdom and fore- 
sight of Roger Williams, that State had become an asylum 
for the persecuted of all denominations from the neighboring 
provinces ; but another cause may be found in the prevalence 
of the Quakers, whose amiable tenets and gentle spirit sub- 
dued the rancor and bigotry of fanaticism. Several hundred 
Jews, still commemorated by their cemetery and synagogue, 
allured by the prosperous trade and the tolerant genius of 
the place, added still another feature to the varied popula- 
tion. The lenity of Penn toward the aborigines, and the 
fame of Fox, had given dignity to the denomination of 
Friends, and their domestic culture was refined as well as 
morally superior. Enterjjrise in the men who, in a neighbor- 
ing State, originated the whale fishery, and beauty among the 
women of that sect, are traditional in Rhode Island. We 
were reminded of Berkeley's observations in regard to the 
natural productions of the country, during a recent visit to 
the old fiu'mhouse where he resided. An enormous wild 
grapevine had completely veiled what formed the original 

* " I am glad to find a spirit toward learning prevails in these parts, par- 
ticularly in New York, where, you say, a college is projected, which has my 
best wishes. Let the Greek and Latin classics be well taught ; be this the 
first care as to learning." — Berkeley's Letter to Johnson. — Moore's Sketch of 
Columbia College, New York, 1846. 



BEITISH* TRAVELLERS AND WEITEES. 169 

entrance to the humble dwelling ; and several ancient apple 
trees in the orchard, with Loughs mossy with time, and 
gnarled by the ocean gales, showed, in their sparse fruit and 
matted twigs, the utter absence of the prmiing knife. The 
dwelling itself is built, after the manner common to farm- 
houses a century ago, entirely of wood, with low ceilings, 
broad fireplace, and red cornice. The only traces of the old 
country were a few remaining tiles, with obsolete designs, 
around the chimney piece. But the deep and crystal azure 
of the sea gleamed beyond corn field and sloping pasture ; 
sheep grazed in the meadows, hoary rocks bounded the pros- 
pect, and the mellow crimson of sunset lay Avarm on grass 
slope and paddock, as when the kindly philosopher mused by 
the shore with Plato in hand, or noted a metaj)hysical dia- 
logue in the quiet and ungarnished room which overlooks the 
rude garden. Though, as he declares, ' for every private rea- 
son ' he preferred ' Derry to New England,' pleasant was the 
abode, and grateful is the memory of Berkeley, in this rural 
seclusion. A succession of green breastworks along the brow 
of the hill beneath which his domicile nestles, by reminding 
the visitor of the retreat of the American forces under Gen- 
eral Sullivan, brings vividly to his mind the Revolution, and 
its incalculable infiuence upon the destinies of a land which 
so early won the intelligent sympathy of Berkeley ; while 
the name of Whitehall, which he gave to this peaceful do- 
main, commemorates that other revolution in his. own coun- 
try, wherein the loyalty of his grandfather drove his family 
into exile. But historical soon yield to personal recollections, 
when we consider the memorials of his sojourn. We asso- 
ciate this landscape with his studies and his benevolence ; 
and, when the scene was no longer blessed with his presence, 
his gifts remained to consecrate his memory. In old Trinity, 
the organ he bestowed peals over the grave of his firstborn 
in the adjoining bm-ial ground. A town in Massachusetts 
bears his name. Not long since, a presentation copy of his 
' Minute Philosopher ' was kept on the table of an old lady 
of Newport, with reverential care. In one family, his gift 
8 



170 AMEEICA AND HEK C0MMENTAT0K8. 

of a richly wrought silver coffee pot, and, in another, that of 
a diamond ring, are cherished heirlooms. His rare and costly 
books were distributed, at his departure, among the resident 
clergy. His scholarship at New Haven annually furnishes 
recruits to our church, bar, or medical faculty. In an adja- 
cent parish, the sacramental cup was his donative. His leg- 
acy of ingenious thoughts and benign sentiment is associated 
with hanging rocks that are the seaward boundary of his 
farm ; his Christian ministry with the ancient church, and 
his verse with the progress of America." 

A brave clerical resident of South Kingston, R. I., where 
he died, in 1757, wrote a brief but useful and interesting 
account of the English settlements in America. He de- 
scribes, in a series of letters, the Bermudas, Georgia, and the 
northern dominions of the crown as far as Newfoundland. 
As one of the founders of the Episcopal Church in America, 
an intimate friend of Berkeley, and a respected and efficient 
minister of Narraganset, the Rev. James McSparren's " Plis- 
torical Tract " has a special authority and attraction. 

One of the most pleasing and naive memorials of social 
life in the province of New York in her palmy colonial days, is 
to be found in the reminiscences of Mrs. Grant, a daughter of 
Duncan McVickar, an officer of the British army, who came 
to America on duty in 1757. This estimable lady, in the 
freshness of her youth, resided in Albany, and was intimate 
with Madam Schuyler, widow of Colonel Philip Schuyler, and 
aunt to the general of the same name so prominent in the 
war of the Revolution. The four years which Mrs. Grant 
passed in America, made an indelible and charming impres- 
sion on her mind. She married the Rev. James Grant, of 
Laggan, Invernesshire, and, in 1801, was left a widow with 
eight children. Nine years after, she removed to Edinburgh, 
where she became the centre of a literary and friendly circle, 
often graced by the presence of Sir Walter Scott and other 
celebrities. He secured her a pension of a hundred pounds. 
Mrs. Grant's conversation was of imusual interest, owing to 
her long experience, and, for that period, varied reading. 



BKITISH TRAVELLERS AND •\VRITERS. 171 

She was ambitious of literary distinction. Her " Letters 
from the Mountains," for their descriptive ability and inde- 
pendent tone, won no inconsiderable popularity. JeiFrey re- 
marks that her " poetry is not very good ; " while Moir pays 
her the somewhat equivocal compliment of declaring that she 
" respectably assisted in sustaining the honors of the Scottish 
Muse." But she is chiefly remembered as a writer by her 
" Memoirs," and they have served many novelists, historians, 
and biographers as a little treasury of facts wherewith to 
delineate the life and the scenery of those days, not else- 
where obtainable. Notwithstanding his moderate estimate 
of her other literary efforts, Jeffrey gave Mrs. Grant credit, 
in the Edinburgh Heview, for this autobiography, as " a very 
animated picture of that sort of simple, tranquil, patriarchal 
life, which was common enough within these hundred years, 
in the central parts of England, but of which we are rather 
inclined to think there is no specimen left in the world." It 
was not, however, merely the reproduction of this attractive 
and primitive kind of life that lent a charm to these Me- 
moirs. Many of the features of that Albany community, its 
habits, exigencies, and aspects, were novel and curious ; and 
the lively record thereof from the vivid impressions of such 
a woman, at her susceptible age, gives us a remarkably clear 
though perhaps somewhat romantic idea of what the mano- 
rial and colonial life of the State of New Yoi'k was, and 
wherein it differed from that of Virginia and New Eno-land. 

In her day, the amiable and intelligent author of the 
"Memoirs of an American Lady" enjoyed no little social 
consideration from her literary efforts — unusual as such a dis- 
tinction was with her sex at that period — and from her kindly 
.and dignified character. De Quincey, when quite a youth, 
met her in a stage coach, and cherished very agreeable recol- 
lections of her manners. "I retain the impression," he 
writes, " of the benignity which she, an established wit, and 
just then receiving incense from all quarters, showed, in her 
manners, to me, a person utterly unknown." 



172 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

According to Mrs. Grant, 

" The summer amusements of the young were simple, healthful, 
and joyous. Their principal pleasure consisted in what we now call 
picnics, enjoyed either upon the beautiful islands in the river near 
Albany, which were then covered with grass and shrubbery, tall 
trees and clustering vines, or in the forests on the hills. When the 
warm days of spring and early summer appeared, a company of 
young men and maidens would set out at sunrise in a canoe for the 
islands, or in light wagons for ' the bush,' where they would fre- 
quently meet a similar party on the same delightful errand. Each 
maiden, taught from early childhood to be industrious, Avould take 
her work basket with her, and a supply of tea, sugar, coffee, and 
other materials for a frugal breakfast, while the young men carried 
some rum and dried fruit to make a light, cool punch for a midday 
beverage. But no previous preparations were made for dinner, ex- 
cept bread and cold pastry, it being expected tliat the young men 
Avould bring an ample supply of game and fish from the woods and 
the waters, provision having been made by the girls of apparatus for 
cooking, the use of which was familiar to them all. After dinner, 
the company would pair oif in couples, according to attachments and 
affinities, sometimes brothers and sisters together, and sometimes 
warm friends or ardent lovers, and stroll in all directions, gathering 
wild strawberries or other fruit in summer, and plucking the abun- 
dant flowers, to be arranged into bouquets to adorn their little par- 
lors and give much pleasure to their parents. Sometimes they would 
remain abroad until sunset, and take tea in the open air ; or they 
would call upon some friend on their way home, and partake of a 
light evening meal. In all this there appeared no conventional re- 
straints upon the innocent inclinations of nature. The day was 
always remembered as one of pure enjoyment, without the passage 
of a single cloud of regret." 

In l759-'60, a kindly and cultivated minister of the 
Church of England made a tour of intelligent observation in 
the Middle States ; and fifteen years after, when the aliena- 
tion of the colonies from Great Britain had passed from a 
speculative to a practical fact, this amiable divine gave to the 
public the narrative of his Amerian journey. There is a 
pleasant tone, a wdse and educated spirit in this record, which 
make ample amends for the obvious influences of the wa-iter's 
religious and political views upon his impressions of the coim- 



BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 1(6 

try and the people. The Rev. Andrew Burnaby was a native of 
Lancastershire, an eleve of Westminster School, and a graduate 
of Queen's College, Cambridge. He became vicar of Green 
wich in 1769, and obtained credit as an author by a volume 
of sermons, and an account of a visit to Corsica. His book 
on America was " praised and valued " as a fair and agree- 
able report of " the state of the colonies " then called the 
" Middle Settlements." The author states, in his preface, 
that its appearance dui'ing " the present difficulties " may ex- 
pose him to misrejiresentation ; but he asserts the candor of 
his motives, and frankly declares that, while his " first attach- 
ment " is for his native country, his second is to America. 

Burnaby landed from Chesapeake Bay, and his book (a 
thin quarto) opens with a description of Virginia, where he 
sojourned with Colonel Washington. He is struck with the 
efficiency of lightning rods, and the efficacy of snakeroot, and 
with the abundance of peaches, which are given as food to 
the hogs. He describes the variety of squirrels, the indige- 
nous plants and birds, the ores and crops of the Old Domin- 
ion. The women there, he says, " are immoderately fond of 
dancing, and seldom read or endeavor to improve their 
minds." He notes the " jirodigious tracts of land " belong- 
ing to individuals, and then a wilderness, and, like so many 
other travellers there, is impressed with the comparative im- 
provident habits of the people. " The Virginians," he says, 
" are content to live from hand to mouth. Tobacco is their 
chief staple, and tliey cultivate enough to pay their mer- 
chants in London for supplying those wants which their plan- 
tations do not directly satisfy." On the other hand, he cele- 
brates the virtuous contentment of the German settlers on 
the low grounds of the Shenandoah. Their freedom, tran- 
quillity, and " few vices " atone, m his estimation, for the 
absence of elegance. He attended a theatre in a " tobacco 
house " at Marlborough, and enjoyed a sixteen hours' sai] 
along the Chesapeake to Frederickstown. " Never," he 
writes, " in my life, have I spent a day more agreeably or 
with higher entertainment." Much of this zest is to be 



174 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

ascribed to the good clergyman's enjoyment of scenery, fresh 
air, and fine weather. The streams, the woods, and the 
mountains of the New World elicit his constant admiration. 
A salient trait of his journal is the positive character he con- 
fidently assigns to the inhabitants of the different colonies. 
Sometimes it is evident that their respective religious and 
political tendencies enlist or repel his sympathies, and there- 
fore modify his judgment, but, at other times, his opinion 
seems to be the result of candid observation ; and it is inter- 
esting to compare what he says on this subject, with later 
estimates and present local reputations. Of Philadelphia he 
remarks : " There is a public . market held twice a Aveek, 
almost equal to Leadenhall. The people there are quiet, 
and intent on money getting, and the women are decidedly 
handsome." He notes the stocking manufacture of the Ger- 
mans, and the linen made by the Irish in Pennsylvania. He 
thinks the New Jersey people " of a more liberal turn than 
these neighbors of theirs," and is enthusiastic about the Falls 
of the Passaic. He recognizes but two churches in New 
*York — Trinity and St. George's — and declares the women 
there " more reserved " than those of the colony of Penn. 
He speaks of a memorable social custom of New York — 
" turtle feasts," held at houses on the East River, where, also, 
ladies and gentlemen, to the number of thirty or forty, were 
in the habit of meeting " to drink tea in the afternoon," and 
return to town " in Italian chaises," one gentleman and one 
lady in each. The good doctor evidently is charmed Avith 
these snug arrangements for a legitimate Ute-d-Ute, and men- 
tions, in connection therewith, a practice not accordant with 
the greater reserve he elsewhere attributes to the New York 
belles. " In the way " (from these turtle feasts and tea 
drinkings), " about three miles from New York, there is a 
bridge, which you pass over as you return, called the Kissing 
Bridge, Avhere it is part of the etiquette to salute the lady 
who has put herself imder your protection." 

Like most Englishmen, Burnaby finds a rare combination 
of scenery, climate, and resources on Long Island, and makes 



BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 175 

especial mention of one feature. " About sixteen miles from 
the west end of it there opens a large plain, between twenty 
and thirty miles long and four or five miles broad. There is 
not a tree growing upon it, and it is asserted there never was. 
Strangers are always carried to see this plain, as a great curi- 
osity, and the only one of the kind in North America," 
What would he have thought of a Western prairie ? 

He is reminded in Hellgate of Scylla and Charybdis ; and 
the aspect and climate of Newport, R. I., charm him. 
" There is a public library here," he writes, " built in the 
form of a Grecian temple, and by no means inelegant." The 
Quakers, the Jews, and the fortified islands are duly noted ; 
but the multiplicity of sects in the Providence Plantations 
evidently does not conciliate the doctor's favorable opinion. 
He speaks of the buttonwood trees, then so numerous and 
flourishing on the island ; " spruce pines," and the beer made 
from their " tender twigs ; " of the abundant and excellent 
fish, and hardy sheep, as well as of the superior butter and 
cheese. Of Newport commerce then, he says : " They im- 
port from Holland, money ; from Great Britain, drygoods ; 
from Africa, slaves ; from the West Indies, sugar, cofiee, and 
molasses ; and from the neighboring colonies, lumber and 
provisions." Of manufactures he observes, " they distil 
rum, and make spermaceti candles." The people of Rhode 
Island, he declares, " are cunning, deceitful, and selfish, and 
live by unfair and illicit trading. The magistrates are partial 
and corrupt, and wink at abuses." All this he ascribes to 
their form of government ; for " men in power entirely de- 
pend on the people, and it has happened more than once that 
a person has had influence to procure a fresh emission of 
paper money solely to defraud his creditors." It is obvious 
that the Churchman leans toward the Proprietary form of 
rule then existent in Maryland, and the manorial state of 
society farther south ; but he concludes his severe criticism 
of the Rhode Islanders with a candid qualification : " I have 
said so much to the disadvantage of this colony, that I should 
be guilty of great injustice were I not to declare that there 



176 AMERICA AND HEK COMISIENTATOES. 

are many worthy gentlemen in it." Although forty years 
had elapsed since the benevolent and ingenious Bishop of 
Cloyne had left Newport, the beneficent traces of his pres- 
ence and the anecdotical traditions of his character still pre- 
vailed among the people. Burnaby thus alludes to the 
subject : " About three miles from town is an indifferent 
wooden house, built by Dean Berkeley when he was in these 
parts. The situation is low, but commands a fine view of 
the ocean, and of some wild, rugged rocks that are on the 
left hand of it. They relate here several strange stories of 
the dean's wild and chimerical notions, which, as they are 
characteristic of that extraordinary man, deserve to be taken 
notice of. One in particular I must beg the reader's indul- 
gence to allow me to repeat to him. The dean had formed 
the plan of building a town upon the rocks which I have 
just taken note of, and of cutting a road through a sandy 
beach which lies a little below it, in order that ships might 
come up and be sheltered in bad weather. He was so full 
of this project, as one day to say to Smibert, a designer 
whom he had brought over with him from Europe, on the 
hitter's asking him some ludicrous question concerning the 
future importance of the place, ' Truly you have little fore- 
sight ; for, in fifty years, every foot of land in this place will 
be as valuable as land in Cheapside.' The dean's house," 
continues Burnaby, " notwithstanding his prediction, is at 
present nothing more than a farmhouse, and his library is 
converted into a dairy. When he left America, he gave it to 
the college in New Haven, Connecticut, which have let it to a 
family on a long lease. His books he divided betv\'een this 
college and that of Massachusetts. The dean is said to have 
written the ' Minute Philosopher' in this place." 

Conservative Dr. Burnaby was not so perspicacious as he 
thought, when he thus reasoned of Berkeley's views of the 
growth in value of the region he loved. However mistaken 
as regards the specific locality and period, he was essentially 
right as to the spirit of his prophecy — as the price of de- 
sirable " lots " and the value of landed property in Newport 



BRITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 177 

uow e\ddence. Herein, as in that more comprehensive predic- 
tion which foretold the westward course of empire, the good 
and gifted dean exhibited the prescience of a benignant genius. 
Burnaby, like countless other visitors, was delighted with 
the country around Boston. He notes the two " batteries of 
sixteen and twenty guns built by Mr. Shirley," and is struck, 
in IVVO — as was Dickens, eighty years after — Avith the resem- 
blance between the New England capital and the " best coun- 
try towns ill England." Indeed, natives of the former recog- 
nize in "Worcester, Eng., many of the familiar local traits of 
Boston, U. S. Our clerical traveller has an eye for the pic- 
turesque, and expatiates on the " unsurpassed prospect " from 
Beacon Hill. He thus enumerates the public edifices then 
there : " The Governor's palace, fourteen meeting houses, 
the Court House, Faneuil's Hall, the linen manufactory, the 
workhouse, the Bridewell, the public granary, and a very 
fine wharf at least a mile long." In architecture he gives the 
pahn to King's Chapel, but significantly records the building 
of an Episcopal church near the neighboring university, 
that was long a beautiful exception to the " wooden lan- 
terns " which constituted, in colonial times, the shrines of 
New England faith. " A church has been lately erected at 
Cambridge, within sight of the college, which has greatly 
alarmed the Congregationalists, who consider it the most 
fatal stroke that could possibly be levelled at their religion. 
The building is elegant, and the minister of it — the Rev. Mr. 
Apthorp — is a very amiable young gentleman, of shining 
parts, great learning, and engaging manners." Well consid- 
eredj the details of this statement singularly illustrate the 
ecclesiastical prestige and prejudice of the day. Burnaby 
recognizes quite a different style of manners and mode of 
action in the Puritan metropolis from those which character- 
ized the Cavalier, the Quaker, or the Dutch colony before 
visited. " The character of this province is much improved 
m comparison with what it was ; but Puritanism and a spirit 
of persecution are not yet totally extinguished. The gentry 
of both sexes are hospitable and good-natured : there is an 
8* 



178 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES . 

air of civility in their behavior, but it is constrained by for- 
mality and ijreciseness. Even the women, though easiness of 
carriage is peculiarly characteristic of their nature, appear 
here with more stiifness and reserve than in the other colo- 
nies. They are formed with symmetry, are handsome, and 
have fair and delicate complexions, but are said universally, 
and even proverbially, to have very indifferent teeth. The 
lower orders are impertinently curious and inquisitive." He 
records some singular, obsolete, and scarcely credible cus- 
toms, which, with other of his observations, are confirmed by 
Anbury, and other writers, who visited New England a few 
years later. The strict if not superstitious observance of the 
Sabbath in New England has been often made the theme of 
foreign visitors ; but Burnaby gives us a curious illustration 
both of the custom and its results. He says that a captain 
of a merchant vessel, having, reached the wharf at Boston on 
Sunday, was there met and affectionately greeted by his 
wife ; which human behavior, on Sunday, so outraged the 
" moral sense of the community," that the captain was 
arrested, tried, and publicly Avhipped for the offence. Ap- 
parently acquiescing in the justice of his punishment, he con- 
tinued on pleasant terms with his numerous acquaintances 
after its infliction, and, when quite prepared to sail, invited 
them to a fete on board ; and, when they were cheerfully 
taking leave, had the whole party seized, stripped to the 
waist, and forty lashes bestowed on each by the boatswain's 
cat-o'-nine-tails, amid the acclamations of his crew ; after 
which summary act of retaliation he dismissed his smarting 
guests, and instantly set sail. 

At the close of his book,* the Rev. Andrew Burnaby, 
D. D., Vicar of Greenwich, expresses some general opinions 
in regard to the colonies, which are noteworthy as the honest 
impressions of a candid scholar and amiable divine, received 
nearly a century ago, Avhile traversing a region wherein an 
imparalleled development, social, political, and economical, 

* " Travels through the Middle Settlements of North America, l'759-'60," 
4to., London, 1775. 



BRITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 179 

has since occurred. " America," he declares, " is formed for 
happiness, but not for empire." The average prosperity of 
the people made a deep impression. " In a course of twelve 
hundred miles," he writes, " I did not see a single object that 
solicited charity." He was convinced that the latent ele- 
ments of discord and division already existed. " Our colo- 
nies," he remarks, " may be distinguished into Southern and 
Northern, separated by the Susquehanna and that imaginary 
line which divides Maryland from Pennsylvania. The South- 
ern colonies have so many inherent causes of weakness, that 
they never can possess any real strength. The cHmate oper- 
ates very powerfully upon them, and renders them indolent, 
inactive, and unenterprising. I myself have been a spectator 
of a man, in the vigor of life, lying upon a couch, and a 
female slave standing over him, wafting off the flies, and fan- 
ning him. These Southern colonies will never be thickly 
settled, except Maryland. Industrial occupation militates 
with their position, being considered as the inheritance and 
badge of slaA^ery." The worthy author also seriously doubts 
if " it will be possible to keep in due order and government 
so wide and extended an emj^ire," He dwells upon the 
" difficulties of intercourse, communication, and correspond- 
ence." He thinks " a volimtary coalition almost difficult to 
be supposed." " Fire and water," he declares, " are not more 
heterogeneous than the different colonies of America." It is 
curious to note wherein these diversities were then thought 
to lie. Dr. Burnaby tells us that Pennsylvania and New 
York were mutually jealous of the trade of New Jersey ; 
that Massachusetts and Rhode Island were equally conten- 
tious for that of Connecticut ; that the commerce of the 
West Indies was " a common subject of emulation," and that 
the " bounds of each colony were a constant source of litiga- 
tion." He expatiates upon the inherent differences of man- 
ners, religion, character, and interests, as an adequate cause 
of civil war, if the colonies were left to themselves ; in which 
case he predicts that both the Indian and the negro race 
would " watch their chance to exterminate all." Against ex- 



180 AMERICA AND HER COMilENTATORS. 

ternal foes he is of opinion that maritime power is the 
exclusive available defence. " Suppose," he writes, " them 
(tlie colonies) capable of maintaining one hundred thousand 
men constantly in arms (a supposition in the highest degree 
extravagant), half a dozen frigates could ravage the whole 
country ; " for it is " so intersected with rivers of sxich mag- 
nitude as to render it impossible to build bridges over them, 
and all communication is thus cut off." The greater part of 
America's wealth, when Burnaby wrote, according to his 
observations, " depended upon the fisheries, and commerce 
with the West Indies." He considered England's best policy 
" to enlarge the present, not to make new colonies ; for, to 
suppose interior colonies to be of use to the mother coimtry 
by being a check upon those already settled, is to suppose 
what is contrary to experience — that men removed beyond 
the reach of power, will be subordinate to it." From specu- 
lations like these, founded, as they are, in good sense, and 
suggested by the facts of the hour, we may infer how great 
and vital have been the progressive change and the assimilative 
process whereby enlarged commercial relations have doomed 
to oblivion petty local rivalries, mutual and comprehensive 
interests fused widely-separated communities, and the applica- 
tion of steam to locomotion brought together regions Avhich 
once appeared too widely severed ever to own a common 
object of pursuit or sentiment of nationality. The Revolu- 
tionary War, the naval triumphs, the system of internal im- 
provements and communication, the agricultural, commercial, 
and manufacturing growth of the United States, in eighty 
years, are best realized when the present is compared with 
such authentic records of the past as honest Dr. Burnaby has 
left us. Yet the events of the passing hour not less em- 
phatically suggest how truly he indicated the essential diffi- 
culties of the social and civic problem to be solved on this 
continent, when he described the antagonism of the systems 
of labor prevalent in the North and South. 

" A Concise View of North America," * by Major Robert 

* " A Concise Account of North America, and the British Colonies, Indian 
Tribes, &c.," by Major Robert Rogers, 8vo., 1765. 



BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 181 

Rogers, published in London in 1765, contains some general 
information ; chiefly, however, hut a meagre outline, which 
subsequent writers have filled up. The unhealthiness and 
mosquitos of the Carolinas seem to have annoyed him 
physically, and the intolerance of the " New Haven Colony " 
morally. He finds much in the natural resources, but little in 
the actual life of the country to extol ; and gives the follow- 
ing sombre picture of Rhode Island, which forms an entire 
contrast to the more genial impression which Bishop Berke- 
ley recorded of his sojourn there : 

" There are in this colony men of almost every persuasion in the- 
world. The greater number are Quakers, and many have no reli- 
gion at all, or, at least, profess none ; on which account no questions 
are asked, each man being left pretty much to think and act for him- 
self — of which neither the laws nor his neighbors take much cogni- 
zance : so greatly is their liberty degenerated into licentiousness. 
This i^rovince is infested with a rascally set of Jews, who fail not to 
take advantage of the great liberty here granted to men of all pro- 
fessions and religions, and are a pest not only to this, but to the 
neighboring provinces. There is not a free school in the whole col- 
ony, and the education of children is generally shamefully neg- 
lected." 

Two works on America appeared in London in 1760-'61, 
which indicate that special information in regard to this coun- 
try was, then and there, sufficiently a desideratum to afford a 
desirable theme for a bookseller's job. The first of these 
w^as edited by no less a personage than Edmund Burke ; * and 
somewhat of the interest he afterward manifested in the 
rights and prospects of our country, may be traced to the 
research incident to this publication, which was issued under 
the title of " European Settlements in America." It was one 
of those casual tasks undertaken by Burke before he had risen 
to fame : like all compilations executed with a view to emol- 
ument rather than inspired by personal taste, these two 
respectable but somewhat dull volumes seem to have made 
little impression upon the public. They succinctly describe 

* " Account of the European Settlements in America," by Edmund Burke, 
2 vols., 8vo. maps, London, 1757. 



182 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

the West India Islands, the Mississipj^i and Ohio rivers, the 
colonies of Louisiana, and the French, Dutch, and English 
settlements, the rise and progress of Puritanism, and the 
persecution and emigration of its votaries. With reference 
to the latter, considerable statistical information is given in 
regard to New England, and the colonial history of Penn- 
sylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas sketched. 
Trade, laws, natural history, political views, productions, &c., 
are dwelt upon ; and, as a book of reference at the time, the 
work doubtless proved useful. It appeared anonymously, with 
the impi-int of Dodsley, who issued a fourth edition in 1766. 

" The affairs of America," says Burke, in his preface, 
" have lately engaged a great deal of pxiblic attention. Be- 
fore the present hour there were very few who made the his- 
tory of that quarter of the world any part of their study. 
The history of a country which, though vast in itself, is the 
property of only four nations, and which, though peopled 
probably for a series of ages, is only known to the rest of 
the world for about two centuries, does not naturally afford 
matter for many volumes." He adds, that, to gain the 
knowledge thus brought together, " a great deal of readhig 
has been found requisite." He remarks, also, that "what- 
ever is written by the English settlers in our colonies is to 
be read Avith great caution," because of the " bias of interest 
for a particular jirovince." He found most of these records 
" dry and disgusting reading, and loaded with a lumber of 
matter ; " yet observes that " the matter is very curious in 
itself, and extremely interesting to us as a trading people." 
Although irksome, he seems to have fulfilled his task with 
conscientious care, " comparing pi'inted accounts with the 
best private information ; " but calls attention to the fact 
that " in some places the subject refuses all ornament." He 
acknowledges his obligation to Harris's " Voyages." 

It is interesting, after having glanced at this early com- 
pendium of American resources, history, and local traits — 
the work of a young and obscure but highly gifted Irish 
letterateur — to turn to the same man's plea, in the days of his 



BRITISH TBAVELLEKS ^lND WKITEES. 183 

oi'atorical renown and parliamentary eminence, for that dis- 
tant but rapidly growing country. " England, sir," said 
Burke, in the House of Commons, in 1775, in his speech on 
conciliation with America, " England is a nation which still, 
I hope, respects, and formerly adored her freedom. Tlie 
colonists emigrated from you when this part of your charac- 
ter was most predominant ; and they took this bias and 
direction the moment they parted from your hands. They 
are, therefore, not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty 
according to English ideas, and on English principles ; " — and, 
in allusion to the whale fishery, " neither the perseverance of 
Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterity and 
firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most 
perilous mode of hardy industry to the extent to which it 
has been pushed by this recent people — a people who are still 
in the gristle, not yet hardened into the bone of manhood." 

The other current book of reference, although of some- 
what earlier date, was the combined result of personal obser- 
vation and research, and, in the first respect, had the advan- 
tage of Burke's compilation. It is curious to remetiiber, as 
we examine its now neglected pages, that when " Rasselas " 
and the " Vicar of Wakefield " were new novels, and the 
" Traveller " the fresh poem of the day, the co^emporaries 
of Johnson, Goldsmith, and Burke, as they dropped in at 
Dodsley's, in Pall Mall, found there, as the most full and 
recent account of North America, the " Summary, Historical 
and Political, of the First Planting, Progressive Improve- 
ments, and Present State of the British Settlements in North 
America, by William Douglass, M. D." * There is much infor- 
mation, especially historical, in these two volumes, although 
most of it has long since been elaborated in more finished 
annals. Here is the story of the Dutch East India trade ; of 
the Scots' Darien Company, which forms so graphic an epi- 
sode of Macaulay's posthumous volume ; of the Spanish dis- 

* " Summary, Historical and Political, of the First planting, Progressive Im- 
provement, and Present State of the British Settlements in America," by Dr. 
William Douglass 2 vols. 8vo., Loudon, 1755. 



184 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

coveries and settlements, and of the Hudson's Bay Company. 
The voyages of Cabot, Frobisher, Gilbert, Davis, Hudson, 
Middleton, Dobbs, Button, James, Baffin, and Fox, are briefly 
sketched. On the subject of the whale and cod fisheries, 
numerous details, both historical and statistical, are given. 
The " Mississij^pi Bubble " is described, and the Canadian ex- 
pedition under Sir William Phipps, in 1690, as well as the 
reduction of Port Royal in 1*710. Each State of New Eng- 
land is delineated, as well as New York, Pennsylvania, New 
Jersey, and Virginia ; and what is said of the Indians, of 
sects, of boundaries, polity, witchcraft, currency, colleges, 
scenery, and products, though either without significance or 
too familiar to interest the reader of to-day, must have 
proved seasonable knowledge to Englishmen then meditating 
emigration to America. The author of this " Summary " 
was a Scotchman by birth, who long practised his profession 
in Boston. He seems to have attained no small degree of 
professional eminence. He published a treatise on small 
l)ox in 1722, and one on epidemic fever in 1736. The most 
original remarks in his work relate to local diseases, and his 
medical digressions are frequent. He remarks, in stating the 
diverse condition of the people of old and New England, 
that the children of the latter " are more forward and preco- 
cious ; their longevity is more rare, and their fecundity iden- 
tical." He enumerates the causes of chronic distempers in 
America, independent of constitutional defects, as being bad 
air and soil, indolence, and intemperance. The worthy doc- 
tor, though an industrious seeker after knowledge, appears to 
have indulged in strong prejudices and partialities according 
to the tendency of an eager temperament ; so that it is often 
requisite to make allowance for his personal inferences. He 
was warmly attached to his adopted country, and naively 
admits, in the preface to his work, that, in one instance, his 
statements must be reconsidered, having been expressed 
with a " somewhat passionate warmth and indiscretion " 
merely in aflTection to Boston and the country of New 
England, his altera patria. Dr. Douglass died in 1752. 



BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 185 

His work on the " British Settlements in North America " 
was originally published in nmnbers, at Boston, between 
January and May, 1749, forming the first volume; the 
second in 1753 ; and both first appeared in London in 1755. 
The work was left incomplete at the author's death. An 
improved edition was issued by Dodsley in 1760. Adam 
Smith calls him " the honest and downright Dr. Douglass ; " 
but adds that, in " his history of the American colonies he is 
often incorrect ; and it Avas his foible to measure the Avorth 
of men by his personal friendship for them." 

Chancellor Kent, in a catalogue raisonne he kindly drew 
lip for the use of a Young Men's Association, commended to 
their attention the " Travels and Adventures of Alexander 
Henry," * a fur trader, and a native of New Jersey, who, be- 
tween the years 1760 and 1776, travelled in the northwest 
part of America, and, in 1809, published an account of this 
long and remarkable exjierionce. Confessedly " a premature 
attempt to share in the fur trade of Canada directly on the 
conquest of the country, led him into situations of some dan- 
ger and singularity " — quite a modest way of stating a series 
of hazards, artifices, privations, and successes, enough to fur- 
nish material for a more complacent writer to excite the 
wonder and sympathy of a larger audience than he strove to 
win. In the year 1760 he accompanied General Amherst's 
expedition, which, after the conquest of Quebec, descended 
from Oswego to Fort Levi, on Lake Ontario, They lost 
three boats and their cargoes, and nearly lost their lives, in 
the rapids. Much curious information in regard to the In- 
dians, the risks and method of the fur trade, and the adven- 
turous phases of border life in the northwest, may be found 
in this ingenious narrative. Henry's " enterprise, intrepidity, 
and perils," says Kent, " excite the deepest interest." 

Forty letters,! written between 1769 and 1777, by "William 

* " Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territory, between 
the Years 1760 and 1776," New York, 1809. 

\ " Letters from America, Historical and Descriptive, comprising Occur- 
rences from 1769 to 1777, inclusive," by William Eddis, 8vo., 1792. 



186 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

Eddis, and published in Loudon in 1792, contain numerous 
statistical and historical facts not elsewhere obtainahle. The 
author's position as surveyor of the customs at Aimapolis, in 
Maryland, gave him singular advantages as an obsen'er ; and 
his letters are justly considered as the " best account we 
have of the rise of Revolutionary principles in Maryland," 
and have been repeatedly commended to historical students 
by British and American critics, although their details are so 
unfavorable to the former, and so full of political promise to 
the latter. The writer discusses trade, government, manners, 
and climate, and traces the progress of the civil dissensions 
which ended in the separation of the colonies from the mother 
country. 

If from an urbane Fi'ench officer and ally we turn to the 
record of an English militaire^ whose views of men and 
things we naturally expect to be warped by political animos- 
ity and the fact that many of his letters were written while 
he was a prisoner of war, it is an agreeable surprise to find, 
with occasional asperity, much candid intelligence and inter- 
esting local information. Thomas Anbury was an officer in 
Burgoyne's army, and his " Travels in the Interior of Amer- 
ica" was publislied in London in 1789. He tells us that the 
lower classes of the New Englanders are impertinently curi- 
ous and inquisitive ; that a " live lord " excited the wonder- 
ment of the country people, and disappointed their expecta- 
tions then as now. He complains of Congress as " ready to 
grasp at any pretence, however weak, to evade the terms of 
the convention ; " but, at the same time, he commends the 
absence of any immanly exultation on the part of the Amer- 
icans at Burgoyne's surrender. " After we had piled our 
ariils," he Avrites, " and our march was settled, as we passed 
the American army, I did not observe the least disrespect, or 
even a taunting look ; all was mute astonishment and i^ity." 
He sympathizes with the sorrowful gratification of a be- 
reaved mother, to whom one of his brother officers restored 
her son's Avatch, which the British soldiers had purloined 
from his body on the battle field. He writes of the bright 



BRITISH TKAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 187 

plumage of the hummingbird, and the musical cry of the 
whippoorwill ; the grandeur of the Hudson, and the grace of 
the Passaic Falls. He notes some curious and now obsolete 
New England customs, and describes the process of cider 
making, and the topography of Boston ; in which vicinity he 
experienced all the rigor of an old-fashioned winter in that 
latitude, the dreariness of which, however, seems to have 
been essentially relieved by the frolicking sleigh rides of the 
young people. In one of his letters, dated Cambridge, where 
he was quartered for many weeks, he thus speaks of that 
academic spot as it appeared during the Revolution : 

" The town of Cambridge is about sis miles from Boston, and 
was the country residence of the gentry of that city. There are a 
number of fine houses in it going to decay, belonging to the Loyal- 
ists. The town must have been extremely pleasant ; but its beauty 
is much defaced, being now only an arsenal for military stores : and 
you may suppose it is no agreeable circumstance, every time we walk 
out, to be reminded of our situation, in beholding the artillery and 
ammunition wagons that were taken with our army. The character 
of the inhabitants of this province is improved beyond the descrip- 
tion that our uncle B gave us of them, when he quitted the 

country, thirty years ago ; but Puritanism and the spirit of persecu- 
tion are not yet totally extinguished. The gentry of both sexes are 
hospitable and good-natured, with an air of civility, but constrained 
by formality and preciseness. The women are stiff and reserved, 
symmetrical, and have delicate complexions ; the men are tall, thin, 
and generally long-visaged. Both sexes have universally bad teeth, 
which must probably be occasioned by their eating so much mo- 
lasses." 

Although a more genial social atmosphere now pervades 
the comparatively populous city, since endeared by so many 
gifted and gracious names identified with literature and sci- 
ence, the " stiffness " of Cambridge parties was long prover- 
bial ; and an artist who attended one, after years of sojourn 
in Southern Europe, declared his fair partner in a solemn 
quadrille touched his hand, in " crossing over," Avith a reti- 
cence so instinctively cautious as to remind him of " a boy 
feeling for cucumbers in the dark." The defective teeth then 
so characteristic of Americans, which Anbury attributes to 



188 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

the use of molasses, was noticed by other foreign visitors, 
and more justly ascribed to' the climate, and its eflfect upon 
the whole constitution. It is owing, perhaps, to the greater 
need of superior dental science on this side of the water, 
that it subsequently attained such perfection, and that the 
most skilful American practitioners thereof not only abound 
at home, but are preferi-ed in Europe. A Virginian, to whom 
this writer complained of the inquisitiveness and exacting 
local pride of the people, advised him to avoid it by an antici- 
patory address to every new set of acquaintance, as follows : 
" Ladies and gentlemen, I am named Thomas Anbury. It is 
no little mortification that I cannot visit Boston, for it is the 
second city of America, and the grand emporium of rebel- 
lion ; but our parole excludes us from it." 

Despite an occasional sleigh ride along the Mystic and the 
Charles, some interesting phases of nature that beguiled his 
observant mind, and the hospitable treatment he frequently 
received, we cannot wonder that he found renewing his 
" pass " every month, and the monotonous limits of his win- 
ter quarters, irksome ; so that every morning, with his com- 
rades, he eagerly gazed " from their barracks to the mouth 
of Boston harbor, hoping to catch sight of the fleet of trans- 
ports that was to convey them to England." 

A striking illustration of the influence of Tory prejudice 
and disappointment, immediately after the successful termina- 
tion of the War of Independence, may be found in the Trav- 
els of J. F. D. Smythe.* The work was published by sub- 
scription, and among the list of patrons are many names of 
the nobility and officers of the British army. The writer 
professes to be actuated by a desire to gratify public curios- 
ity about a country which has just passed through an " ex- 
traordinary revolution." He declares it a painful task " to 
mention the hardships and severities " he had undergone in 
the cause of loyalty and the pursuit of knowledge. He dis- 
claims ill will, having "no resentments to indulge, no revenge 

* " A Tour in the United States of America," by J. F. D. Smythe, Esq., Lon- 
don, 1784. 



BKITISn TEAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 189 

to pursue ; " and adds, " The few instances I have met with 
of kind and generous treatment, have afforded me infinite 
gratification." The occasion and motive of his pubHcation are 
thus stated : " Having lately arrived from America, where I 
had made extensive journeys, and fatiguing, perilous expe- 
ditions, prompted by unbounded curiosity and an insatiable 
enthusiasm for knowledge, during a residence in that country 
for a considerable length of time, I had become perfectly 
reconciled and habituated to the manners, customs, disposi- 
tions, and sentiments of the inhabitants." He conceived 
himself peculiai'ly fitted to describe and discuss the new 
republic. Moreover, he was dissatisfied with all that had 
been published on the subject. " I eagerly sought out and 
pursued," he observes, " with a degree of avidity rarely felt, 
every treatise and publication relating to America, from the 
first discovery by the iromortal Coliunbus to Carver's late 
travels therein, and even the ' Pennsylvania Farmer's Letters,' 
by Mr, Hector St. John, if, indeed, such a person ever exist- 
ed ; but always had the extreme mortification to meet with 
disappointment in my expectations, every one grasping at 
and enlarging on the greater objects, and not a single author 
descending to the minutite, which compose as well the true 
perspective as the real intercourse and commerce of life." 
He bespeaks the kindly judgment of his readers for a work 
" wi'itten without ornament or elegance, and perhaps, in some 
respects, not perfectly accurate, being composed under pecu- 
liarly disadvantageous circiimstances." The latter excuse is 
the best. Baflled and chagrined in his personal aspirations, 
and having suffered capture, imprisonment, and, according to 
his own account, some wanton cruelty ; remembering tlie pri- 
vations and dangers of travel in a new, and exposure in an 
inimical co\intry, shattered by illness, and, above all, morti- 
fied at the ignominious failure of the Royal cause, he writes 
with bitter prejudice and exaggerated antipathy, despite the 
show of candor exhibited in the preface. Nor can ^ve find 
in his work, as a literary or scientific performance, any just 
reason for his depreciation of his predecessors. He may 



190 AMERICA AND HEK COIIMENTATOES. 

note a few cii'cumstances overlooked by them, but, on tlie 
score of accurate and fresh information, there is little value 
in the physical details he gives ; while the political and social 
are so obviously jaundiced by partisan spite as to be of lim- 
ited significance. Indeed, there is cause to suspect that Mr. 
Smythe was not infrequently quizzed by his informants ; and 
his best reports are of agricultural and topographical facts. 
His " Travels in America," therefore, are now more curious 
than valuable : they give us a vivid idea of the perverse and 
prejudiced commentaries in vogue at the period among the 
least magnanimous of the Tory faction. He, like others of 
his class, was struck with the " want of subordination among 
the peoj)le." He descants on the " breed of running horses " 
in Virginia. The bullfrogs, mosquitos, flying squirrels, fossil 
remains, and lofty timber ; the wheat, corn, sugar, cotton, 
and other crops ; the characteristics of difierent Indian 
tribes ; the clearings, the new settlements, the hospitality, 
splendid landscapes, and " severe treatment of the negroes ; " 
the handsome women, the " accommodations not suited to 
an epicure," the modes of farming, the habits of planters 
and riflemen, the extent and character of the large rivers, 
the capacity of soils, and the behavior of diflferent classes, 
&c., form his favorite topics of description and discussion, 
varied by inklings of adventure and severe experiences as a 
fugitive and a prisoner. He tells us of the " harems of 
beautiful slaves" belonging to the Jesuit establishment in 
Maryland ; of being " attacked by an itinerant preacher ; " 
of the " painful sensation of restraint " experienced from the 
" gloom of the woods ; " of his horse " refusing to eat ba- 
con ; " and of the " formal circumlocution " of a wayside 
acquaintance, evidently better endowed with humor than 
himself. In these and similar themes his record assimilates 
with many others written at the time ; but what give it 
peculiar emphasis, are the political comments and prophecies 
— very curious to recall now, in the light of subsequent 
events and historical verdicts. " I have no Avish to widen the 
breach," he says; "but the illiberal and vindictive principles 



BRITISH TRAVELLEKS A^D "WRITERS. 191 

of the prevailing party " in America, seem to him fatal to 
any hearty reconciliation between the mother country and 
her wayward and enfranchised offspring. So absolutely is 
his moral perception obscured, that he deliberately maligns a 
character whose immaculate pm-ity even enemies then recog- 
nized with delight. " It was at Alexandria," he writes, 
" that George Washington first stepped forth as the public 
patron and leader of sedition, having subscribed fifty pounds 
where others subscribed only five, and having accepted the 
command of the first company of armed associates against 
the British Government." So far we have only the state- 
ment of a political antagonist ; but when, in the retrospect 
of his career as military chieftain and civic leader, he thus 
estimates the man whose disinterestedness had already be- 
come proverbial, we recognize the absolute perversity of this 
professedly candid writer : 

" Mr. Washington has uniformly cherished and steadfostly pur- 
sued an apparently mild, steady, but aspiring line of conduct, and 
views of the highest ambition, under the most specious of all cloaks 
— that of moderation, which he invariably appeared to possess. His 
total want of generous sentiments, and even of common humanity, 
has appeared notoriously in many instances, and in none more than 
in his sacrifice of the meritorious but unfortunate Major Andre. 
Nor during his life has he ever performed a single action that could 
entitle him to the least show of merit, much less of glory ; but as a 
politician he has certainly distinguished himself, having, by his politi- 
cal manoeuvres, and his cautious, plausible management, raised him- 
self to a degree of eminence in his own country unrivalled, and of 
considerable stability. In his private character he has always been 
respectable." 

As a specimen of Tory literature, this portrait forms a 
singular and suggestive contrast w ith those sketched of the 
same illustrious subject by Chastellux, Guizot, Erskine, 
Brougham, Everett, and so many other brilliant writers. It 
is easy to imagine what discouraging views of the new 
rejiublic such a man would take, after this evidence of his 
moral perspicacity and mental discrimination. Yet Mr. 
Smythe was of a sentimental turn. There are verses in his 



192 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. 

American Travels, " written in solitude," not, indeed, equal 
to Shelley's; and, when incarcerated, he inscribed rhymes 
with charcoal on his prison wall. "We must make due allow- 
ance for the wounded sensibilities of a man who had been 
the victim of a " brutal Dutch guard," a " robber of the 
mountain," and a " barbarous jailer," when he tells us that 
the " fatal termination of the war," and the " consequences 
of separation from Great Britain and alliance with France," 
are " inauspicious for both countries." Accorijing to Mr. 
Smythe, the Americans were " corrupted by French gold," 
and entered into an " affected amity with that artful, perfidi- 
ous, and gaudy people." He prophesies that " when the in- 
toxication of success is over, they will repent their eiTor." 
Meantime, he pleads earnestly for the Loyalists, declares 
America rapidly becoming depopulated on accoimt of its 
" unsettled government " and the check of emigration, and, 
altogethei', an " unfit place of residence." 



CHAPTER YI. 

british travellers and writers continued. 

"wanset ; cooper ; "wilson ; davis ; ashe ; bristed ; kendall ; 
weld ; cobbett ; campbell ; byron ; moore ; mrs. wake- 
fleld ; hodgson ; jansen ; caswell ; holmes, and others ; 
hall; fearon; fiddler; lyell; featherstonatjgh ; combe; 
female writers ; dickens ; faux ; hamilton ; parkinson ; 
mrs. trollope ; grattan ; lord carlisle ; anthony trol- 
lope ; prentice ; stirling. 

If, in early colonial times, North America was sought as a 
refuge from persecution and a scene of adventurous explora- 
tion, and, during the French and Revolutionary wars, became 
an arena for valorous enterprise ; when peace smiled upon the 
newly organized Government of the United States, they 
allured quite another class of visitors — those who sought to 
ascertain, by personal observation, the actual facilities which 
the New World offered, whereby the unfortunate could re- 
deem and the intrepid and dexterous advance their position 
and resources. Hence intelligent reporters of industrial and 
social opportunities were welcomed in Europe, and especially 
among the manufacturers, agriculturists, and traders of 
Britain ; and these later records differ from the earlier in 
more specific data and better statistical information. To the 
American reader of the present day they are chiefly attrac- 
tive as affording facts and figures whereby the development 
of the country can be distinctly traced from the adoption of 
9 



194: AMERICA AND HER COIUMENTATORS. 

the Federal Constitution to the present time, and a salient 
contrast afforded between the modes of life and the aspect 
of places sixty years ago and to-day. The vocation, social 
rank, and personal objects of these writers so modify their 
observations, that, in almost every instance, allowance must 
be made for the partialities and prejudices, the limited knowl- 
edge or the self-love of the journalist and letter writer ; yet, 
as their aim usually is to impart such information as will'be 
of practical benefit to those who contemplate emigration, 
curious and interesting details, economical and social, may 
often be gleaned from their pages. One of these books, 
which was quite popular in its day, and is still occasionally 
quoted, is that of Wansey, which was published in 1794, and 
subsequently reprinted here.* His voyage across the Atlan- 
tic was far from agreeable, and not without serious priva- 
tions. Indeed, nothing more remarkably indicates the prog- 
ress of coinfort and luxury within the last half century, than 
the speed and plentiful resources wherewith the visitor to 
America now makes the transit. Wansey, as was the custom 
then, furnished his own napkins, bedding, and extras for the 
voyage ; his account of which closes with the remark, that 
" there does not exist a more sordid, penurious race than 
the captains of passage and merchant vessels." Yet a no- 
bler class of men than the American packet captains of a 
subsequent era never adorned the merchant service of any 
nation. 

Henry Wansey, F. S. A., was an English manufacturer, and 
his visit to America had sjjecial reference to his vocation. 
He notes our then very limited enterprise in this sphere, and 
examined the quality and cost of wool in several of the 
States. On the 8th of June, 1'794, he breakfasted with 
Washington at Philadelphia. " I confess," he writes, " I was 
struck with awe and A^eneration. The President seemed very 
thoughtful, and was slow in delivering himself, which in- 

* "An Excursion to the United States, in the Summer of 1794," by Henry 
Wansey ; with a curious profile portrait of Washington, and a view of the 
State House in Philadelphia, 12mo., pp. 280, Salisbury, 1798. 



BRITISH TEAVELLEKS AND WKITERS. 195 

duced some to believe Lim reserved ; but it was rather, I 
apprehend, the result of much reflection ; for he had, to me, 
the appearance of affability and accommodation. He was, at 
this time, in his sixty-third year, but had very little the ap- 
pearance of age, having been all his life exceedingly temper- 
ate. There was a certain anxiety visible in his countenance, 
with marVs of extreme sensibility." 

Wansey, like most visitors at that period, was struck with 
the great average of health, intelligence, and contentment 
among the people. " In these States," he writes, " you behold 
a certain plainness and simplicity of manners, equality of con- 
dition, and a sober use of the faculties of the mind. It is 
seldom you hear of a madman or a blind man in any of the 
States ; seldom of a felo de se, or a man afllicted with the 
gout or palsy. There is, indeed, at Philadelphia, a hospital 
for lunatics. I went over it, but foimd there very few, if 
any, that were natives. They were chiefly Irish, and mostly 
Avomen." "What an illustration of our present eagerness for 
wealth and oflSce — of the enci'oachments of prosperity upon 
simple habits and chastened feelings — is the fact that now 
insanity is so prevalent as to be characteristic, and that a 
" sober use of the faculties of the mind " is the exception, 
not the rule, of American Hfe ! 

To those curious in byway economies, it may be pleasant 
to know, that Wansey, in the year '94, foimd the " Bimch of 
Grapes " the best house of entertainment in Boston ; that it 
was kept by Colonel Colman, and that, though " pestered 
with biigs," his guest paid " five shillings a day, including a 
pint of Madeira." He records, as memorable, the circiun- 
stance that he " took a walk to Bunker Hill with an officer 
who had been on the spot in the battle ; " and that they re- 
turned " over the new bridge from Cambridge," which Wan- 
sey — not having lived to see the Suspension Bridge at Niag- 
ara, the Victoria at Montreal, nor the Waterloo in London — 
observes is " a most prodigious work for so infant a country 
— worthy of the Roman empire." Boston then boasted 
" forty hackney coaches, which carry one to any part of the 



196 AMEEICA AND HER COMIMENTATOKS. 

town for a quarter of a dollar," The j^iUar on Beacon Hill, 
and Long Wharf, were to him the chief local objects of 
interest. He visited the " famous geographer," Jedddiah 
Morse, at Charlestown, read the Columbian Centinet^ and 
attended " the only Unitarian chapel yet opened in America, 
and heard Mr. Freeman." Springfield, in Massachusetts, put 
him in mind of Winbourn, in Dorsetshire ; the cofiee there 
was " ill made," and the " butter rank," while the best article 
of food he foimd was " fried fish." He was charmed with 
the abundance of robins and swallows, and saw " a salmon 
caught in a seine in the Connecticut River," and " a school- 
house by the roadside in almost every parish." He attended a 
meeting of the Legislatm-e in Hartford, and heard a debate 
as to how " to provide for the poor and sick negroes who 
had been freed from slavery — the question being whether it 
was incumbent on the former masters, or the State, to subsist 
them. Like all strangers then and there, he was hospitably 
received by Mr. Wadsworth. He mentions, as a noteworthy 
facility for travellers, that " three or four packets sail every 
week from New Haven to New York." Of New England 
commodities which he records for theu' novelty or preva- 
lence, are sugar from the maple tree, soft soap, and cider. 
Like all foreigners, he complains of the bad bread, and enu- 
merates, as a curious phenomenon, that there is " no tax on 
candles ; " that thimder storms are frequent, and lightning 
conductors on all the houses ; that woodpeckers, flycatchers, 
and kingbirds abound ; that the dwellings are built exclu- 
sively of timber, and that " women and children, in most of 
the country places, go without caps, stockings, and shoes." 
The well poles of New Jersey, and her domestic flax spin- 
ners, cherry trees, and fireflies impress him as characteristic ; 
and he is disappointed in tho quality of the wool produced 
there. In New York, Mr. Wansey lodged at the Tontine 
Coffee House, near the Battery, where he met Citizen Genet 
and Joseph Priestley, breakfasted with General Gates, and 
received a call from Cliancellor Livingston. He " makes a 
note " of the then " public buildings " — viz., the Governor's 



BRITISH TKAVELLEES AND WRITERS. 197 

house, the Exchange, the Society Library, the Literary Coffee 
House, Columbia College, the hospital, and workhouse. He 
foimd some " good paintings by Trumbull " at Federal Hall, 
was interested in Montgomery's monument, went with a 
party to see " Dickson Colton's manufactory at Hellgate," 
and Hodgkinson in " A Bold Stroke for a Husband " at the 
theatre. He encountered John Adams, then Vice-President, 
at Burling Slip, " on board the packet just sailing for Bos- 
ton," and describes him as " a stout, hale, well-looking man, 
of grave deportment, and quite plain in dress and person." 
He dined with Comfort Sands ; and Mr. Jay, " brother to 
the ambassador," took him to " the Belvidere — an elegant 
tea-drinking house, with delightful views of the harbor ; " 
also to " the Lidian Queen, on the Boston road, filled with 
Frenchmen and tri-color cockades." In Philadelphia, he saw 
Washington at the play, which was one of Mrs. Lichbald's ; 
dined with Mr. Bingham, and heard all about the ravages of 
the yellow fever of the preceding year. * 

How suggestive are even such meagre notices of personal 
experience, reviving to our minds the primitive housewifery, 
the political vicissitudes, and the social tastes which mark the 
history of the land sixty years ago : when the first President 
of the republic had been recently inaugurated ; when the 
mischievous " French alliance " was creating such bitter par- 
tisan feeling ; when a Unitarian philosopher fled from a Bir- 
mingham mob to the wilds of Pennsylvania ; when the abo- 
lition of slavery was a familiar fact in our social life ; when 
good Mrs. Inchbald's dramas were favorites, and Brockden 
Brown was writing his graphic story of the pestilence that 
laid waste his native city ; when Trumbull was the artist, 
Hodgkinson the actor. Genet the demagogue, Livingston the 
lawyer, and Washington the glory of the land ! 

Among the economical writers on our country, Thomas 
Cooper was at one time much quoted.* His remarks were, 
however, the fruits of quite a brief survey, as he left Eng- 

*" Some Information respecting America," London, 1Y94. 



198 AMEEICA AJSTD HEK COiEMENTATOKS. 

land late in the summer of 1793, and embarked on his return 
the ensuing winter. He found " land cheap and labor dear ; " 
praises the fertility of the Genesee Valley, then attracting 
emigrants from New England, as its subsequent inhabitants 
were lured by the same causes to the still farther western plains 
of Ohio and Illinois. Cooper indicates, as serious objections 
to New York State, the intermittent fevers, and the unsatis- 
factory land tenure — both of which obstacles have gradually 
disappeared or been auspiciously modified, as the civilization 
of the interior has advanced, and its vast resources been 
made available by the genius of communication. This writer 
also declares that the climate of Pennsylvania is more dry. 
The existence of slavery he considers a vital objection to the 
Southern sections of the country for the British emigrant. 
He remarks of Rhode Island, that it is " in point of climate 
as well as appearance the most similar to Great Britain of 
any State in the Union " — a remark confirmed often since by 
foreign visitors and native travellers. It is to be observed, 
however, that most of those who explored the States, when 
the facilities for travel were meagre and inadequate, for the 
purpose of obtaining economical information, usually confined 
their experience to special regions, where convenience or acci- 
dent induced them to linger ; and thus they naturally give 
the preference to different places. Brissot recommends the 
Shenandoah Valley, and Imlay, Kentucky. Cooper thought 
" the prospect in the professions unprofitable." He states 
that literary men, as a class, did not exist, though the names 
of Franklin, Rittenhouse, Jefferson, Paine, and Barlow were 
distinguished. The number of articles he mentions as mdis- 
pensable " to bring over," in 1793, gives one a startling idea 
of the deficiencies of the coimtry. He asserts, however, that 
the " culinary vegetables of America are superior to those of 
England ; " but, on the other hand, was disappointed in the 
trees, as, " although the masses of wood are large and 
grand," yet the arborescent specimens individually " fell 
much short of his expectations ; " which does not surprise 
those of his readers who have seen the noble and impressive 



BKITISH TKAVELLEES AND WKITEES. 199 

trees which stand forth in such magnificent relief in some of 
the parks and manor grounds of England. The details of a 
new settlement given by this writer, are more or less identi- 
cal with those which have since become so familiar to us, 
from the vivid pictures of life in the West ; but we can 
easily imagine how interesting they must have been to those 
contemplating emigration, or with kindred who had lately 
found a new home on this continent. More, however, of the 
Puritan element mingled with and marked the life of the set- 
tlers in what was then " the "West " — and tinctured the then 
nascent tide of civilization. Somewhat of the simplicity no- 
ticed by writers during colonial times, yet lingered ; and the 
social lesson with which Cooper ends his narrative is benign 
and philosophical : " By the almost general mediocrity of 
fortune," he writes, " that prevails in America, obliging its 
people to follow some business for subsistence, those vices 
that arise usually from idleness are in a great measure pre- 
vented. Atheism is unknown ; and the Divine Being seems 
to have manifested His approbation of the mutual forbear- 
ance and kindness with which the different sects treat each 
other, by the remarkable prosperity with which He has been 
pleased to crown the whole countiy." 

Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, the Paisley weaver 
and poet, after enduring political persecution and great pri- 
vations at home, landed at Newcastle, in Delaware, July 
14th, 1794, and, having shot a red-headed woodpecker, was 
inspired with an ornithological enthusiasm which decided his 
career. He became a schoolmaster, an ardent politician, and, 
through intimacy with Bartram, a confirmed naturalist. He 
wrote for Brockden Brown's magazine, made a pedestrian 
tour to Niagara, was the author of " The Foresters " — an 
elaborate poem in the Portfolio, and fixed his home on the 
banks of the Susquehanna : meantime, and subsequently, toil- 
ing, in spite of every obstacle and with beautiful zeal, upon 
his " American Ornithology ; " and in this and other writings, 
in verse and prose, giving the most vivid local descriptions of 



200 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

life and nature iu America as revealed to the eye of science 
and of song * 

Travel here, as elsewhere, brings out the idiosyncrasies, 
and proves a test of character. A certain earnestness of 
purpose and definite sympathy lend more or less dignity to 
the narratives of missionary, soldier, and savant ; but these 
were soon succeeded by a class of men whom accident or 
necessity brought hither. The welcome accorded some of 
them, when " stranger was a holy name " among us, and the 
greater social consideration experienced in a less conventiohal 
state of society than that to which they had been accus- 
tomed, sometimes induced an amusing self-complacency and 
oracular tone. With the less need of the heroic, more super- 
ficial traits of himian nature found scope ; and a fastidious 
taste and critical standard wei-e too often exhibited by writers, 
whose previous history formed an incongruous parallel with 
the newborn pretensions warmed into life by the republican 
atmosphere of this young land. A visitor whose narrow 
means obliged him often to travel on foot and rely on casual 
hospitality, and whose acquirements enabled him to subsist 
as a tutor in a Southern family, for several months, would 
challenge our respect for his independence and self-reliance, 
were it not for an egotistical claim to the rank of a practical 
and philosophical traveller, which obtrudes itself on every 
page of his journal. Some descriptive sketches, however, 
atone for the amiable weakness of John Davis,f whose 
record includes the period between 1798 and 1802, during 
which he roamed over many sections of the country, and 
observed various phases of American life. " I have entered," 
he says, " with equal interest, the mud hut of the negro and 

* " American Ornithology ; or, The Natural History of the Birds of the 
United States," with plates from original drawings taken froni nature, 9 vols., 
folio, Philadelphia, 1808-'14. 

" The Foresters, a Poem descriptive of a Pedestrian Journey to the Falls 
of Niagara," 12mo., Paisley, 1825. 

\ " Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States, during the 
years 1798 to 1802," by John Davis, dedicated to President Jefferson, Svo., 
London, 1803. 



BRITISH TEAYELLERS AND WRITERS. 201 

tlie log house of tlie planter ; I have likewise communed with 
the slave who Avields the hoe and the taskmaster who im- 
poses the labor." Pope, Addison, and Johnson were his 
oracles, and the style of the latter obviously won his syiupar 
thy. Burr fascinated him ; Dennie praised his verses, and 
he saw Brockden BroAvn. His volume abounds with byway 
anecdotes. He records the details of his experience with the 
zest of one whose self-esteem exalts whatever befalls and 
surrounds him. To-night he is kept awake by the howls of 
a mastiff, to-raorroAV he dines on venison ; now he writes an 
elegy, and now engages in Ifterary discussion with a planter. 
His odes to a cricket, a mockingbird, to Ashley River, etc., 
■evidence the Shenstone taste and rhyme then so much in 
vogue. He " contemplated AA-ith reverence the portrait of 
James Logan," and draws from an Irish clergyman new anec- 
dotes of Goldsmith. He disputes Franklin's originality in the 
form of an amusing dialogue between a Virginian and a New 
Englander, tracing the philosopher's famous parable to Bishop 
Taylor, and his not less famous epitaph to a Latin author. 
He praises Phillis Wheatley, and notes, with evident pleas- 
ure, the trees, grains, reptiles, bii'ds, and animals. Great is 
his dread of the rattlesnake. Anecdotes and verses, philo- 
sophical reflections and natural history items, with numerous 
personal confessions and impressions, make up a characteris- 
tic melange^ in which the vanity of a bard and the specula- 
tions of a traveller sometimes grotesquely blend, but with so 
much good nature and harmless pedantry, that the result is 
diverting, and sometimes instructive. " My long residence," 
he writes, " in a community ' where honor and shame from 
no condition rise,' has placed me above the ridiculous pride 
of disowTiing the situation of a tutor." In this vocation he 
certainly enjoyed an excellent opportunity to observe that 
unprecedented blending of the extremes of high civilization 
and rude economies which forms one of the most salient 
aspects of our early history. The English tutor, when do- 
mesticated in a Southern family, was sheltered by a log 
house while he shared the pleasures of a sumptuorfs table ; 
9*- 



202 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

and, when surrounded by the crude accommodations of a 
new plantation, witnessed the highest refinement of manners, 
and hstened to the most intellectual conversation. If, during 
his wanderings, he was annoyed, one night, by a short bed, 
he was amused, the next, by a travelling menagerie. If, in 
tutoring, his patience was tried by seeing people " strive to 
exceed each other in the vanities of life," he Avas compen- 
sated, in the woods, by shooting wild turkeys with his pupil. 
He quotes Shakspeare, and observes nature with great relish ; 
and the cotton plant, the autunm wind, the A\ild deer, eagles, 
hummingbirds, whippoorwills, " bog jjlant, and flycatchers, 
with occasional flirtations with a mellifluous muse, beguile 
the time ; and he boasts, in the retrospect of his four years' 
sojourn, and the written digest thereof, that he " scorns com- 
plaints of mosquitos and bugs," that he " eschews magnifi- 
cent epithets," " makes no drawings," and " has not joined 
the crew of deists " — which negative merits, we infer, were 
rare in travellers' tales half a century ago. The republican 
ideas, inquiring turn of mind, or extreme deference of this 
writer, seems to have won him the favorable regard of Jef- 
ferson, upon whom and Burr he lavishes ardent praise : and 
the former seems to recognize not only a political admirer, 
but a brother author, in Davis ; for, in reply to his request 
to dedicate his Travels to the apostle of American democ- 
racy, Jefierson, after accepting graciously the compliment, 
writes : " Should you, in your journeyings, have been led to 
remark on the same objects on Avhich I gave crude notes 
some years ago, I shall be happy to see them confirmed or 
corrected by so accurate an observer." His work is entitled, 
" Travels of Four and a Half Years in the United States, 
1799-1802," London, 1817. "With more sincerity," says 
Rich's JBihliotheca Americana^ " than is usual among travel- 
lers, he states that he made the tour on foot, because he 
could not afford the expense of a horse." 

In 1806, Thomas Ashe visited North America, with the 
intention of examining the Western rivers, in order to learn, 
from personal inspection, the products of their vicinage, and 



BKinSH TKAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 203 

the actual state of the adjacent country. The Mississippi, 
Ohio, Monongahela, and Alleghany were the special objects 
of his exploration. His " Travels in America " * is a curi- 
ous mixture of critical disparagement, quite too general to 
be accurate, and of romantic and extravagant episodes, which 
diminish the reliance that might otherwise be placed on the 
more practical statements. The work appeared in London in 
1808. 

The natural appetite for the marvellous, and the desire 
to obtain a knowledge of facts, at that time, in regard to the 
particular region visited, being prevalent, this now rarely con- 
sulted volimie was much read. From Pittsburg he writes : 
" The Atlantic States, through which I have passed, are un- 
worthy of your observation. The climate has two extremes." 
The Middle States " are less contemptible ; the national fea- 
tures not sti'ong ; " and, from this circumstance, he thinks 
it difficult to conjecture what national character will arise. 
At Carlisle, Pa., he '" did not meet a man of decent litera- 
ture." He seeks consolation, therefore, in the picturesque 
scenes around him, which are often described in rhetorical 
terms, and in a recognition of the fairer portion of the com- 
munity. Thomson's " Seasons" is evidently a favorite book ; 
and he presents a copy to a " young lady among the emi- 
grants," on the blank leaf of which, he tells us, he wrote a 
" romantic but just compliment." Education, sects, manu- 
factures, and provisions are commented on ; but the tone of 
his remarks, 'except where he praises the face of nature or 
the manners of a woman, is discouraging to those who con- 
template settling in the western part of the country — which 
he continually brings into severe comparison with the more 
developed communities of the Old World. Indeed, he re- 
pudiates the flattering accounts of i:>revious travellers ; and it 
is evident that the reaction from his own extravagant expec- 

* "Travels in America, performed in 1806," by Captain Thomas Ashe, 3 
vols. 12mo., London, 1808. 

" His account of the Atlantic States forms the most comprehensive piece 
of national abuse we ever recollect to have read." — Rich. 



204 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

tations leads him to picture the dark side with earnestness. 
Personal disappointment is expressed in all his generaliza- 
tions, although certain local beauties and exceptional indi- 
viduals modify the strain of complaint, which, though some- 
times well founded, is often unreasonable. He describes the 
hardships and privations iacident to emigration, and illus- 
trates them by melancholy examples. The " vicious taste in 
building," the formidable catalogue of snakes, the want of 
literary culture, the discomfort, and the coarse manners quite 
eclipse the chai-ms of landscape and the natural advantages 
of the vast region which, since his journey, has become so 
populous, enterprising, and productive. He " reports " a 
boxing match, horse race, ball and supper in Virginia ; hears 
a debate in Congress, and retires " full of contempt;" swin- 
dlers and impostors intrude on his privacy at a tavern. He 
says, with truth, that " no people live with less regard to 
regimen ; " and, as we read, beautiful scenes seem to be 
counterbalanced by bad food, grand rivers by uncultured 
minds, cheap land by narrow social resources ; in a word, the 
usual conditions of a new country, where nature is exuberant 
and civilization incomplete, are described as such anomalies 
would be by a man with a fluent and ambitious style, tastes 
and self-love easily oiFended, and to whom the " law of a pro- 
duction," which Goethe deemed so essential to wise criticism 
in letters, is scarcely applied, though still more requisite to a 
traveller's estimate. Ashe put on record some really useful 
information, and stated many disenchanting triiths about the 
New World, and life there ; but the rhetorical extravagance 
and personal vanity herewith ventilated, detract not a little 
from his authority as a reference and his tact as a romancer. 
The gentler portion of creation alone escape reproach. " I 
assure you," he writes, " that when I expressed the sviprerae 
disgust excited in me by the people of the United States, the 
ladies were by no means included in the general censure." 

When we remember that such books, half a century ago, 
were the current sources of information in Great Britain in 
regard to America, and that a writer so limited in scope, in- 



BRITISH TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS, 205 

discriminate in abuse, and superficial in thought, was re-' 
garded as an authority, it is easy to perceive how the inimical 
feeling toward this country was fostered. One fact alone 
indicates the shallowness of Ashe : he dates none of his com- 
placent epistles from the Northern States, and gives, as a rea- 
son therefor, that they are " unworthy of observation." He 
thinks the social destiny of Pittsburg redeemed by a few 
Irish families settled there, who " hindered the vicious pro- 
pensities of the genuine American character from establish- 
ing here the horrid dominion which they have assumed over 
.the Atlantic States." He finds the men deteriorated on 
account of their " political doctrines," which, he considers, 
tend " to make men turbulent citizens, abandoned Christians, 
inconstant husbands, and treacherous friends." Here we 
have the secret of this traveller's sweeping censure. His 
hatred of republican institutions not only blinded him to all 
the privileges and merits of American life and character, but 
even to certain domestic traits and professional talents, recog- 
nized by every other foreign observer of the country. Yet, 
palpable as are his injustice and ignorance, contemporary 
critics at home failed to recognize them. One says, " his 
researches cannot fail to interest the politician, the statesman, 
the philosopher, and the antiquary ; " while the Quarterly 
Mevieio mildly rebukes him for having " spoiled a good book 
by engrafting incredible stories on authentic facts." 

Rev. John Bristed, who succeeded Bishop Griswold in St. 
Michael's Church, at Bristol, R. I,, published, in 1818, a work 
on " America and her Resources." He was a native of Doi*- 
setshire, England, and, for two years, a pupil of Chitty. 
Strong in his prejudices of country, yet impressed with the 
advantages of the New World, his report of American 
means, methods, and prospects, though containing much use- 
ful, and, at the time, some fresh and desirable information, is 
crude, and tinctured with a personal and national bias, wdiich 
renders it, superseded as most of its facts have been by the 
development of the country, of little present significance. It 
is, however, to the cmious, as an illustration of character, a 



206 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

suggestive indication of the state of feeling of an English 
resident, and of the state of the country forty or fifty years 
since. The author was a scholar, with strong convictions. 
He died at Bristol a few years since, at an advanced age. 
He also published " A Pedestrian Tour in the Highlands," 
in 1804. His work on America was the result of several 
years' residence ; and its scope, tone, and character are best 
hinted by the opinion of one of the leading Reviews of 
England, thus expressed soon after its publication : " We 
cannot avoid regarding Mr. Bristed with some degree of 
respect," says the London Quarterly. "In writing his, 
book, his pride in his native country, which all his repub- 
licanism has been unable to overcome, has frequently had to 
contend Avith the flattering but unsubstantial prospect with 
which the prophetic folly that ever accompanies democracy 
has impressed his mind, to a degree almost equalling that of 
the vain people with whom he is domiciled." As an au- 
thentic landmark of economical progress, this work is use- 
ful as a reference, whatever may be thought of its social 
criticism. 

An entire contrast to the record of Ashe appeared about 
the same time, in the " Travels through the Northern Parts 
of the United States," * by Edward Augustus Kendall. No 
previous Avork on this coimtry so fully explains the State 
polity and organization of New England, and the social facts 
connected therewith, "The intention of • travel," says the 
intelligent and candid author, " is the discovery of truth." 
As unsparing in criticism as Ashe, he analyzes the mimicipal 
system and the social development with so much knowledge 
and fairness, that the political and economical student will 
find more data and detail in his work than, at that period, 
were elsewhere obtainable. It still serves as an authentic 
memorial of the region of country described, at that transi- 
tion era, when time enough had elapsed, after the Revolution- 
ary War, for life and labor to have assumed their normal 

* " Travels through the Northern Parts of the Ucited States, in the years 
1807-'8," by Edward A. Kendall, 3 vols. 8vo., New York, 1809. 



BKITISH TEAVELLEE8 AND WKITERS, 207 

development, and before their scope had been enlarged and 
their activity intensified by the vast mechanical improve- 
ments of our own day. The local laws of Connecticut, for 
instance, are fully discussed ; townships, elections, churches, 
prisons, schools, and the press — all the elements and principles 
which then and there manifested national and moulded pri- 
vate character. The famous " Blue Laws " form a curious 
chajiter ; and, in his account of the newspaper press, he notes 
the remarkable union of " license of thought with very favor- 
able specimens of diction," and enlai'ges upon the prevalent 
" florid and tumid " language in America, its causes and cure ; 
while his chapter on Hartford Poetry is an interesting illus- 
tration of our early local literature. 

Scarcely any contemporary writer of American travels was 
more quoted and popular, sixty years ago, than Isaac Weld, 
whom the troubles of Ireland, in '95, induced to visit this 
country. That experience, we may readily imagine, caused 
him thoroughly to appreciate the importance of practical 
observations in a land destined to afford a prosperous home 
for such a multitude of his unfortunate countrymen. Ac- 
cordingly we find, in his weU-written work,* abundance of 
economical and statistical facts ; and the interests and pros- 
pects of agriculture and commerce are elaborately considered. 
While this feature rendered Weld's Travels really useful at 
the time of their publication, and an authentic reference sub- 
sequently, his ardent love of nature lent an additional interest 
to his work ; for he expatiates on the beauties of the land- 
scape with the perception of an artist, and is one of the few 
early travellers who enriched his journal with authentic 
sketches of picturesque and famous localities. The French 
translation of Weld's Travels in America is thus illustrated ; 
and the old-fashioned yet graphic view of an " Aubcrge et 
voiture publique dans les £tats Unis," vividly recalls the days 
anterior to locomotives, so suggestive of stage-coach adven- 

* " Travels through the States of North America and the Provinces of 
Upper and Lower Canada, in 1195-96-91," by Isaac "Weld, illustrated with 
fine engravings, 4to., 1V99. 



208 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 

tures, deliberate travel, and the unmodified life and character 
of the rural districts. In describing the sanguinary attacks of 
New Jersey insects, he deals in the marvellous, giving Wash- 
ington as authority that the mosquitos there bite through 
the thickest boots. 

No writer on America has more singularly combined the 
political refugee and adventurer with the assiduous econo- 
mist than William Cobbett. Born and bred a farmer, he 
fled, while a youth, from the peaceful vocation of his father, 
to become a soldier in Nova Scotia ; but soon left the service, 
visited France, and, in 1796, settled in Philadelphia, where 
the fierce tone of his controversial writings involved him in 
costly libel suits. His interest in the political questions then 
rife in America is amply evidenced by the twelve volumes of 
the works of Peter Porcupine, piiblished in London in 1801. 
Returning to England, he became the strenuous advocate of 
Pitt, and started the Weekly Register^ which contained his 
lucubrations for thirty years ; but, having once more ren- 
dered himself amenable to law by the combined freedom and 
force of his pen, he returned to the United States, and en- 
joyed the prestige of a political exile in the vicinity of New 
York ; and when the repeal of the Six Acts permitted his 
return home, he conveyed to England the bones of Thomas 
Paine, whose memory he idolized. Cobbett is recognized 
under several quite distinct phases, according to the views of 
his critics — as a malignant radical by some, a philosophical 
liberal by others. His style is regarded as a model of per- 
spicacity ; and his love of agriculture, and faith in habits of 
inexpensive comfort and cheerful industry, made him, m the 
eyes of partial observers, quite the model of republican hardi- 
hood and independence ; while the more refined and urbane 
of his day shrank from his vituperative language and bitter 
partisanship. He slandered the benign Dr. Rush, and Ben- 
tham declared " his malevolence and lying beyond every- 
thing ; " while Kent remarked that his political writings 
afforded a valuable source of knowledge to those who would 
imderstand the parties and principles which agitated our 



BRITISH TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 209 

country during his sojourn ; and the London Times ap- 
plauded the muscular vigor of his diction. But it is as a 
writer on the economical and social facts of American life, 
that Cobbett now claims our notice ; and in this regard he 
differs from most authors in the same sphere, in the specific 
character of the information he imparts, and the deliberate 
conclusions at which he arrived. Some of our venerable 
countrymen remember his pleasant abode on Long Island, 
and the memorable discussions which sometimes took place 
there between the political exile, reformer, grammarian, and 
horticulturist, and his intelligent visitors from the city. The 
late Dr. Francis used to quote some of his emphatic sayings, 
and describe his frugal arrangements and agricultural tro- 
phies. In the preface to his " Year's Residence in America," * 
Cobbett complains of English travellers as too extreme in 
their statements iu regard to the country — one set describing 
it as a paradise, and the other as imfit to live in. He treats 
the subject in a practical vs'ay, and from patient experience. 
Enamored of a farmer's life, he boasts that he was " bred up 
at a ploughtail and among the hop gardens of Surrey," and 
that he was never eighteen months " without a garden." He 
exj^atiates on the superior condition of the agriciUtural class 
in America, where " a farmer is not a dependent wretch," 
and where presidents, governors, and legislators pride them- 
selves on the vocation. He describes his own little domain, 
the American trees he has j^lanted around his house, his ex- 
periments in raising corn, potatoes, and especially rutabaga. 
By " daily notes " he careftilly reports the transitions of tem- 
perature and seasons, and gives definite accounts of modes 
of cultivation, the price of land, cost of raising kine and 
poultry ; in a word, all the economical details which a prac- 
tical man would prize. By the narrative of his own doings 
in the vicinity of New York, and of his observations during 
a journey to the West, the foreign reader must have obtained 
from Cobbett the most satisfactory knowledge of the mate- 

* " A Year's Eesidence in the United States," 3 vols., 8vo., London, 
1818. 



210 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

rial resources of a large section of the country as it was 
forty years since. Through these agricultural items, how- 
ever, the disappointment of the politician and the sympathies 
of the republican vividly gleam ; for the truculent author 
constantly rejoices that no " spies, false witnesses, or blood- 
money men " beset the path of frugal toil and independent 
thought in this land of freedom. He justly laments the 
prevalence of intemperance, and compares the " Hampshire 
parsons " and their flocks — not at all to the advantage of 
either — with the " good, kind people here going to church to 
listen to some decent man of good moral character and of 
sober, quiet life." Despite the narrowness of the partisan 
and the egotism of the innovator, Cobbett, in some respects, 
is one of the more clear and candid reporters who sought to 
enlighten Europe about America. A critical authority in 
agricultui-e, while denying him scientific range, admits that 
he adorned the subject " by his homely knowledge of the art, 
and most agi-eeable delineation ; " while some of the most es- 
sential social traits, remarkable political tendencies, and emi- 
nent public characters of the United States, have been most 
truly and impressively described by William Cobbett. 

" I visited Parliament House," writes an American from 
London in 1833. "The question was the expediency of ab- 
rogating the right, under any circumstances, of impressing 
seamen for her Majesty's navy. Cobbett said but a few 
words, but they went directly to the question : ' One fact on 
this subject claims and deserves the attention of the House. 
The national debt consists of eight hundred millions of 
pounds ; and seven hundi'ed thousand of this debt was 
incurred in the war with America, in support of this right 
of impressing seamen.' " 

However coarse the radicalism of Cobbett, there was a 
basis of sense and truth in his intrej^id assertion of first prin- 
ciples — his recognition and advocacy of elementary political 
justice — that just thinkers respect, however uncongenial may 
be the manner and method of the man ; no little of the offen- 
sive character thereof beinsj attributable to a baffled and false 



BRITISH TEAVELLEES AND WKITERS. 211 

position. An acute German writer * aj)OStropliizecl him, not 
inaptly, thus : " Old Cobbett ! dog of England ! I do not 
love you, for every vulgar nature is fatal to me ; but I pity 
you from my deepest soul, when I see that you cannot break 
loose from your chain, nor reach those thieves who, laughing, 
slip away their plunder before your eyes, and mock your fruit- 
less leaps and unavailing howls." 

While political reformers of the liberal school, drew argu- 
ments from American prosperity, popular bards gave expres- 
sion to the common vexation, by taunting the republic with 
the taint of slavery, though a poisoned graft from the land 
of our origin — as Campbell, in his bitter epigram on the 
American flag — or with sarcasms upon democratic manners, 
as in Moore's ephemeral satire. And yet, when the prospect 
for men with more wit than money, and more learning than 
rank, in Great Britain, was all but hopeless, the Bard of Hope 
could discover no more auspicious home than the land he thus 
sneered at for a local and inherited stain. Alluding to a half- 
formed project of joining his brother in America, and earning 
his subsistence there by teaching, he observes, in a letter to 
Washington Irving : " God knows I love my country, and 
my heart would bleed to leave it ; but if there be a consum- 
mation such as may be feared, I look to taking up my abode 
in the only other land of liberty ; and you may behold me, 
perhaps, flogging your little Spartans in Kentucky into a true 
sense and feeling of the beauties of Homer." 

Byron, an impassioned devotee of freedom, and disgusted 
by the social proscription his imdisciplined and wilful career 
had entailed on him in his native land, turned a gaze of sym- 
pathy toward the West. It is said no tribute to his fame 
delighted him so much as the spontaneous admiration of 
Americans. He was highly gratified when one of our ships 
of war paid him the compliment of a salute in the harbor of 
Leghorn ; and expressed unfeigned satisfaction when told of 
a well-thumbed copy of his poems at an inn near Niagara 

* Heine. 



212 AMEBIC A AND HER COMMENTATOKS. 

Falls. Indeed, his restless mind often fonnd comfort in the 
idea of making his home in the United States. Every school- 
boy remembers his apostrophe to this comitry, in his Ode to 
Venice : 

" One great clime, 
"Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean 
Are kept apart, and nursed in the devotion 
Of freedom, which their fatliers fought for and 
Beqneatlied — a heritage of heart and hand. 
And proud distinction from each other land — 
Yet rears her crest, imconqucred and sublime, 
Above the far Atlantic. She has taught 
Her Esau brethren that the haughty flag. 
The floating wall of Albion's feebler crag. 
May strike to those whose red right hands have bought 
Rights cheaply earned with blood." 

" One freeman more, America, to thee," Byron would 
have indeed added ; and, had he followed the casual impulse 
and found new inspiration from nature on this continent, and 
outlived here the fever of passion and the recklessness of 
error, how easy to imagine his later manhood and his per- 
verted name alike redeemed by faith and humanity into " vic- 
torious clearness." 

A remarkable evidence of the prevalent fashion and feel- 
ing, on the other hand, is to be found in the writings of Tom 
Moore. His Life, so imprudently sent to the press by Lord 
John Russell, exhibits, in his own letters and diaries, as com- 
plete a fusion of the man of the world and the poet — if such 
a phenomenon is possible — as can be found in the whole 
range of literary biography. But Moore was a man of fancy 
and music rather than of deep or wide sympathies — a social 
favorite and graceful rhymer, who lived for the drawing 
room and the dinner, and was beguiled by aristocratic hospi- 
talities from that great and true world of humanity wherein 
the true bard finds inspiration. Accordingly, it was to be 
expected that his hasty visit to America should be, as it was, 
made capital for satire and song, in the interest of British 
prejudice. There is so little originality or completeness in 



BKITISH TEAVELLEKS AND WKITEKS. 213 

these desultory notes of liis A'isit, with the exception of two 
finished and melodious lyrics — " The Lake of the Dismal 
Swamp " and " The Canadian Boat Song " — that only the 
prestige of his name makes them of present interest. 

Moore arrived at Norfolk, Va., in the autumn of 1803, 
in H. B. M. frigate Phaeton, where he stayed ten days, and 
then went to Bermuda in the " Driver " sloop-of-war. 
Thence he proceeded in the " Boston " to New York ; 
visited Washington and Philadelphia, Canada and Niagara 
Falls. At Bermuda he met Basil Hall, then a midshipman. 
At Washington ho had an interview with Jefferson, " whom," 
he writes, " I found sitting with General Dearborn and one 
or two other officers, and in the same homely costume, com- 
prising slippers and Connemara stockings." He enjoyed 
Philadelphia society, and addressed some verses to " Dela- 
ware's green banks " and " Fair Schuylkill." He describes 
Buffiilo as a village of wigwams and huts ; and part of his 
journey thence to Niagara he was obliged to perform on 
foot, through a half-cleared forest. On his arrival, he tells 
us he lay awake all night listening to the Falls ; and adds, 
" The day following I consider a sort of era in my life ; and 
the first glimpse I caught of that wonderful cataract gave 
me a feeling which nothing in this world will ever awaken 
again." His rhymes intended as " the song of the spirit of 
that region " are not, however, suggestive of these emotions. 
He spent part of his time with " the gallant Brock," who 
then commanded at Fort George, and, accompanied by him 
and the officers of the garrison, visited the Tuscarora In- 
dians, and witnessed their dances, games, and rites with satis- 
faction. The Falls of the Mohawk also awoke his muse ; and 
he was much delighted at the refusal of the captain of a 
steamboat on Lake Ontario to accept passage money from 
the " poet." Nearly all the period of Moore's sojourn was 
passed with British consuls or army and naval officers. From 
these and the Federalists of Philadelj^hia, he tells us, he 
" got his prejudices " in regard to America. The " vulgarity 
of rancor " in politics, and the " rude familiarity of the lower 



214: AMEBIC A AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

orders," were very offensive to him ; and, although his oppor- 
tunities for " cursory observation " were quite limited, he 
found America " at maturity in most of the vices and all the 
pride of civilization." Slavery, of course, is the chief object 
of his satire : of its origin he is silent. The crude state of 
border life, the prevalence of French sympathies, and the 
recklessness of partisan zeal, are among the special defects 
upon Avhich he ironically descants, as usual ascribing them to 
the institutions of the country. He sneers at 

" The embryo capital, where fancy sees 
Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees ; " 

and scornfully declares that 

" Columbia's patriot train 
Cast ofi" their monarch that their mob might reign ; " 

and assures his readers 

" I'd rather hold my beck 
In climes where liberty has scarce been named, 
Nor any right but that of ruling claimed, 
Than thus to live wliere bastard Freedom waves 
Her fustian flag in mockery over slaves." 

He begins one of his tirades with 

" Aready in this free and virtuous state, 
Which Frenchmen tell us was ordained by Fate ; " 

and his anti-Gallicism is as obvious as his hatred of the 
" equality and fraternity " principles, which he thinks so de- 
grading. Yet it was here that he saw the picture of domes- 
tic peace and prosperity that prompted the lines, " I knew, 
by the smoke that so gracefully curled ; " and the want of 
magnanimity in an Irish bard, in overlooking the blessings 
America has rained upon his countrymen, in flijipant com- 
ments on temporary social incongruities, is the more apparent 
from his acknowledgment in the preface to his " Poems 
relating to America," subsequently written : " The good will 
I have experienced from more than one distinguished Ameri- 



BRITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WEITEKS. 215 

can, sufficiently assures me that any injustice I may have 
done to that land of freemen, if not long since wholly for- 
gotten, is now remembered only to be forgiven." 

Even a cursory examination of the British Travels m 
America already noticed, would suggest the facility and de- 
sirableness of a judicious compilation therefrom. It is easy 
to imagine a volume replete with information and attraction, 
gleaned by a discriminating hand from such copious but ill- 
diffested materials. Omitting the mere statistics and the 
extravagant tales, the egotistical episodes and the coarse 
abuse, there remain passages of admirable description, racy 
anecdotes, and genial speculations enough to form a choice 
picture and treatise on nature, character, and life in the New 
World. It is surprising that such an experiment has not 
been tried by one of the many tasteful compilers who have 
sifted the grain from the chaff in so many other departments 
of popular literature. The attempt, on a small scale, was 
made, in 1810, by one of those clever female writers for the 
young, who, about that period, initiated the remarkable and 
successful department of juvenile literature, since so memo- 
rably illustrated by Maria Edgeworth, Mrs. Barbauld, Sir 
Walter Scott, Hans Andersen, and other endeared writers. 
" Excursions in North America, described in Letters from a 
Gentleman and his Young Companions in England," by Pris- 
cilla Wakefield, was a favorite little work among the children 
on both sides of the Atlantic, half a century ago. It is 
amusing to revert to these early sketches, which have given 
to many minds, now mature, their first and therefore their 
freshest impressions of this country. Mrs. Wakefield drew 
her materials from Jefierson, Weld, Rochefoucault, Bartram, 
Michaux, Carver, and Mackenzie, and, in general, uses them 
with tact and taste. The cities and scenery of the land, its 
customs and products, are Avell described. She notes some 
of the stereotj^iDcd so-called national vulgarities which have, 
in the more civilized parts of the country, sensibly diminished 
since the indignant protests of travellers reached their acme 
in Mrs. Trollope. " We have been," it is said in one of the 



216 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. 

letters, " once or twice to the theatre, but the company in the 
pit have such a disgusting custom of drinking wine or porter 
and smoking tobacco, between the acts, that I have no incli- 
nation to visit it again." 

But the pleasantest parts of her book, especially considei*- 
ing for what class of readers it is intended, are those which 
delineate the natural features and productions. Here, for 
instance, we have a description of an indigenous tree, now 
exalted by the selfish and nai-row passions of a small and sen- 
sitive community into an emblem of political hate and ungen- 
erous faction. With this association there seems a latent 
satire in the details of the arborescent portrait. " The Pal- 
metto Royal, or Adam's Needle, is a singular tree. They 
grow so thick together, that a bird can scarcely penetrate 
between them. The stiif leaves of this sword jjlant, stand- 
ing straight out from the trunk, form a barrier that neither 
man nor beast can pass. It rises with an erect stem about 
ten or twelve feet high, crowned with a chaplet of dagger- 
like green leaves, with a stiff, sharp sf)ur at the end. This 
thorny crown is tipped with a pyramid of white flowers, 
shaped like a tulip or lily ; to these flowers succeeds a larger 
fruit, in form like a cucumber, but, when ripe, of a deep 
purple color." 

" We scarcely pass ten or twelve miles," says another 
of these once familiar letters, " without seeing a tavern, as 
they call inns in this country. They are built of wood, and 
resemble one another, having a porch in front the length of 
the liouse, almost covered with handbills. They have no 
sign, but take their name from the person that keeps the 
house, who is often a man of consequence ; for the profession 
of an innkeeper is far more respected in America than in 
England. Instead of supplying their guests as soon as they 
arrive, they make everybody conform to one hour for the 
different meals ; so you must go without your dinner, or 
delay your journey till the innkeeper pleases to lay the 
cloth." This remark on the country taverns as they were 
before the " hotel " had become characterized by size, show, 



BKITISH TKAYELLEES AND WKITEKS. 317 

and costliness, strikes us as most natural, coming from one 
only acquainted with English inns ; and the independent man- 
ners of the landlords are so obvious now, that a foreign writer 
declared they and the steamboat captains formed the only 
aristocracy he had encountered in America ; while the cus- 
tom of arbitrarily regulating the hours for meals, and the 
gregarious manner of feeding, led a Sicilian to complain that 
the guests of a public house in this country, were treated like 
friars in his own. 

A sensible and pleasant but not very profound or methodi- 
cal gentleman of Liverpool published "Remarks during a 
Journey through North America in 1819." This book, writ- 
ten by Adam Hodgson, Esq., was published in this country 
in 1823, and met with a kindly reception on account of the 
well-meaning aim and disposition of the writer, whose na- 
tional prejudices were expressed in a more calm manner than by 
his more vulgar countrjouen ; while a tour of seven thousand 
miles had furnished him with a good amount of useful knowl- 
edge, not, however, well digested or arranged ; and mingled 
therewith are certain personal tastes and views amusing and 
harmless, that lend a certain piquancy to the narrative. He 
examined the country with an eye to its facilities and pros- 
pects for the emigrant, and thus put on record important sta- 
tistical facts, which are sometimes ludicrously blended with 
matters of no conseqiience. He so admired the chorus of 
frogs, heard in the stilhiess of the night at one place of his 
sojourn, that he opened his window to listen to their croak- 
ing, mistaking it, at first, for the notes of birds. He ex- 
pressed the most 7iaive surprise at finding a copy of the 
" Dairyman's Daughter " at a shop in Mobile ; and was so 
nervous in regard to the safety of his baggage, when travel- 
ling by stage coach, that he used a chain and padlock of his 
own, and held the cue thereof. He enjoyed Southern hos- 
pitality, which, however, was sadly marred, to his conscious- 
ness, by slaveholding. He dined on turkey every day for 
weeks, with apparently undiminished relish ; and, with 
amusing pathos, laments that the " absence of the privileges of 
10 



218 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. 

primogeniture, and the repeated subdivision of property, are 
gradually effecting a change in the structure of society in South 
Carolina, and will shortly efface its most interesting and charac- 
teristic features." " His book," wrote Jared Sparks, " is cred- 
itable to his heart and his principles. We should be glad if 
as much could be said for his discretion and judgment." 

C. W. Janson, " late of the State of Khode Island," re- 
sided in America from 1793 to 1806, and published in Lon- 
don, the year after the latter date, "The Stranger in Amer- 
ica," * which the Edinburgh Mevieic severely criticizes ; while 
John Foster, in the Eclectic, awarded it much praise. 

Henry Caswell, in 1849, published "America and the 
American Church, with some Account of the Mormons, in 
1842 ; " and Robert Barclay issued " An Agricultural Tour in 
the United States ; " a couple of volumes entitled "Travels 
through Parts of the United States and Canada in 1818-19," 
and " A Sabbath among the Tuscaroras," are dedicated to Prof. 
Silliman, of Yale College. A small work appeared anony- 
mously in London (181V), entitled "Travels in the Interior 
of America in 1809, '10, and '11," including a description 
of Upper Louisiana. 

Isaac Holmes, of Liverpool, gave to the pi;blic, in 1 823, 
" An Account of the United States of America, derived from 
Observations during a Residence of Four Years in that 
Republic ; " of which the Quarterly observes that its author 
" is rather diffuse and inaccurate," yet gives " a modest and 
true statement of things as they are." 

A rather A^erbose work of E. S. Abdy, previously known 
for a hygienic essay, was read extensively, at the time of its 
appearance, though its interest Avas quite temporary. It de- 
scribed, in detail, a " Residence and Tour in the United 
States in 1833-'34." 

Sir J. Augustus Foster, Envoy to America in 1811-12, 
wrote " Notes on the United States," which were not pub- 
lished, but privately circulated ; although the London Quar' 

* " The Stranger in America," by Charles William Janson, engravings, 4to., 
London, 1807. 



BKITISH TKAVELLEKS AUB WRITEKS. 219 

terly declared its publication desirable " on both sides of 
the Atlantic ; " and Godley's " Letters from Canada and the 
United States," published in London in 1814, contains valu- 
able agricultural data, and is justly characterized by the 
critical journals of that day as sensible and impartial.* 

There was, indeed, from the close of the war of 1812, for 
a series of years, an inundation of English books of travel, 
wherein the United States, their people and prospects, were 
discussed with a monotonous recapitulation of objections, a 
superficial knowledge, and a predetermined deprecation, 
which render the task of analyzing their contents and esti- 
mating their comparative merit in the highest degree weari- 
some. Redeemed, in some instances, by piquant anecdote, 

* Among other works of British writers of early date worth consulting are 
Governor Bernard's Letters ; Burton and Oldmixon on the British Empire in 
America ; and of later commentators, as either amusing, intelligent, curious, 
or salient, sometimes flippant and sometimes sensible, may be mentioned Birk- 
beck's" Notes of a Journey in America in 1817;" Kingdom's " Abstract of In- 
formation relative to the United States" (London, 1820); "Tour in North 
America," by Henry Tudor, Barrister (1834); also the Travels of Bradbury, 
Shirreff, Byam, Casey, Cunningham, Chambers, Davison, FeroU, Finch, Head, 
Latrobe, Mackinnon, McNish, Majorbanks, Park, Sturge, SutcUfFe, Thomson, 
Thornton, Turnbull, Tasistro, ShrafF, Warden, Waterton, Warburton, Weston, 
Keatuig, and Lambe^ ; Dixon, Jameson, Wright, Dickinson, and Pursh ; 
Vigne and Gleig's " Subaltern in America, a Military Journal of the War of 
1812," which originally appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. xxi. ; J. M. Dun- 
can's Travels (1818); Tremenhere's work on " The Constitution of the United 
States compared with that of Great Britain ; " Prof. J. F. W. Johnson's " Notes 
on North America," chiefly agricultural and economical ; Ousley's " Remarks 
on the Statistics and Pohtical Institutions of the United States ; " the statisti- 
cal works of Seyber and Tucker; A. J. Mason's Lectures on the United 
States (London, 1841); and Flint's "Letters from America," chiefly devoted 
to the Western States (Edinburgh, 1822), of which it has been said that 
" James Fhnt was one of the most amiable, accomphshed, and truthful foreign 
tourists who have visited America and left a record of their impressions : he 
died in his native country (Scotland), a few years after his book was pub- 
lished." Two Enghsh ofiicers. Colonel Chesney and Lieut.-Colonel Freemantle, 
published brief accounts of what they saw and gathered from others, in regard 
to the war for the Union — too superficial anH prejudiced to have any lasting 
value ; and Mr. Dicey, the young correspondent of a liberal London journal, 
collected and pubUshed a narrative of his experience, candid, but of limited 
scope and insight. 



220 AMEEICA AND HER COMISIENTATOKS. 

interesting adventure, or some grace of style or originality 
of view, they are, for the most part, shallow, egotistical, and 
more or less repetitions of each other. So systematic and 
continuous, however, are the tone of abuse and the purpose 
of disparagement, that the subject claims separate considera- 
tion. Among those works that attracted special attention, 
from the antecedents of their authors or a characteristic 
manner of treating their subject, was the once f:imiliar book 
of Captain Basil Hall, R. N., the Journal of Fanny Kemble, 
and the " Notes " of Dickens. Of the former, Everett justly 
remarked, in the North American Itevieio^ that " this work 
will furnish food to the appetite for detraction which reigns 
in Great Britain toward this country ; " while even Black- 
wood^s Jfagazitie, congenial as was the spirit of the work to 
its Tory perversities, though characterizing Captain Hall's 
observations as "just and profound," declared they were 
" too much tinctured by his ardent fancy to form a safe guide 
on the many debated subjects of national institutions." A 
like pi'otest against the authenticity of Fearon, a London 
surgeon, who published " A Narrative of a Journey of Five 
Thousand Miles through the Eastern and Western States of 
America,* was uttered by Sydney Smith, who wrote, as his 
critical opinion, that " Mr. Fearon is a much abler writer than 
either Palmer or Bradbury, but no lover of America, and a 
little given to exaggerate his views of vices and prejudices";" 
which estmiate was confirmed by the London Mevieto, which 
declared that the " tone of ill temper which this author usu- 
ally manifests, in speaking of the American character, has 
gained for his work the approbation of persons who regard 
that country with peculiar jealousy." 

So obvious and prevalent had now become this " peculiar 
jealousy," that when, in 1833, the flippant " Observations on 
the Professions, Manners, and Emigration in the United 
States and Canada," of the Rev. Isaac Fiddler, appeared, the 

* " Narrative of a Journey of Five Thousand Miles through the Eastern 
and Western States, with Remarks on Mr. Birkbeck's Notes," by Henry B. 
Fearon, 8vo., London, 1818. 



BRITISH TKAVELLERS AND WEITERS. 221 

JVbrth Americafi Heview truly said of it : " This is another 
of those iirecious specimens of books with which John Bull 
is now regularly humbugged three or four times a year." It 
seemed to be deemed essential to every poi^ular author of 
Great Britain, in whatever department, to write a book on 
America. In those instances where this task was achieved 
by men of science, valuable knowledge gave interest to spe- 
cial obsei-vation ; as in the case of Lyell, Featherstonaugh, 
and Combe, three writers whose scientific knowledge and 
objects give dignity, interest, and permanent value to their 
works on America : but the novelists signally failed, from 
inaptitude for political disquisition, or a constant eye to the 
exactions of prejudice at home. Marryatt and Dickens 
added nothing to their reputations as writers by their super- 
ficial and sneering disquisitions on America. Yet, however 
philosophically superficial and exaggerated in fastidiousness, 
the great charm of Dickens as an author — his humanity, the 
most real and inspiring element of his nature — was as true, 
and therefore prophetic, in these " Notes," as in his delinea- 
tions of human life. Of the long bane of our civic integrity 
and social peace and purity — of slavery, his words were 
authentic : 

" All those owners, breeders, users, buyers, and sellers of slaves, 
who will, vntil the Moody cJiaptei' Ms a Moody end, own, breed, use, 
buy, and sell them at all hazards ; who doggedly deny the horrors of 
the system, in the teeth of such a mass of evidence as never was 
brought to bear on any other subject, and to which the experience 
of every day contributes its immense amount ; who would, at this oi- 
any other moment, gladly inrolre America in a war, civil or foreign, 
provided that it had for its sole end and object the assertion of their 
right to perpetuate slavery, and to whip, and work, and torture 
slaves, unquestioned by any human authority, and unassailed by any 
human power; who, when they speak of freedom, mean the free- 
dom to oppress their kind, and to be savage, merciless, and cruel ; 
and of wliom every man, on his own ground, in republican America, 
is a more exacting, and a sterner, and a less responsible despot, than 
the Caliph Ilaroun Alraschid, in his angry robe of scarlet." 

Of the female writers, there is more reflection and knowl- 



222, AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

edge in the remarks of Mrs. Jameson and Miss Martineau ; 
while nothing can exceed the indelicacy and want of insight, 
not to say absurdities, of the Hon. Amelia Murray — other 
books, however, by female writers, are, despite their unjusti- 
fiable personalities, grateful records of hospitalities and ex- 
periences, well enough for private letters. 

The histrionic commentators, like Power and Fanny Kem- 
ble, and the naval annotators, like HaU and Mackinnon, are re- 
markable for a certain abandon and superficiality. Silk Buck- 
ingham* much enlarged the previous statistical data, and 
Francis Wyse collected some valuable expositions of America's 
" Realities and Resources." Abdy and Duncan, Finch and 
Graham, Lang and Latrobe, Waterton and Thomson, Palmer 
and Bradbury, Wright and MelZish, with scores of others, 
found readers and critics ; and a catalogue raisonne of the 
series of books on America between Ashe and Anthony Trol- 
lope, would prove quite as ephemeral in character as volu- 
minous. It is interesting to turn from the glowing impres- 
sions of American scenery, the ingenuous hatred of the 
" press gang," and unscrupulous personal revelations of Fanny 
Kemble's " Journal of Travel in America," written in the 
buoyant and brilliant youth of the gifted girl, to the details 
and descriptions of " Life on a Southern Plantation," re- 
corded by the earnest and pitiful woman, and published at so 
critical a moment of our national struggle, to enlighten and 
chide her countrymen. 

One of the most contemptible of the detractors was a 
vulgar English farmer, named Faux, whose " Memorable 
Days in America " was thought worthy of critical recogni- 
tion by the once famous reviewer, Gilford. Among the 

* ^ America, Historical, Statistic, and Descriptive," 3 vols. ; " Eastern and 
Western States," 3 vols. ; " Slave States," 2 vols. ; " Canada, Nova Scotia, 
New Brunswick, and other British Provinces," 1 vol. ; in all, 9 handsome vols. 
8vo., by J. S. Buckingham, London, 1841-'3. One of the most interesting 
series of works descriptive of the New World which has ever emanated from 
the press. These volumes contain a fund of knowledge on every subject con- 
nected with America : its rise and progress ; the education, manners, and 
merits of its inhabitants : its manufactures, trade, population, etc. 



BEinSH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 223 

absurd calumnies of this ignorant scribbler, were such grave 
statements as that poisoned chickens were served to him at 
Portsmouth ; that the Mississippi boatmen habitually rob the 
sheepfolds ; that Boston people take their free negroes to 
Carolina, and sell them as slaves ; and that, in America, " the 
want of an established religion has made the bulk of the 
people either infidels or fanatics." 

Among the exceptions to that general rule of ignorance 
and crudity which marks the hasty records of American 
travel by English tourists, when a visit to America, while no 
longer adventurous, was yet compa-ratively rare, is the once 
famous book of Captam Thomas Hamilton. The author of 
a successful novel of modern life — as far as literary cultiva- 
tion may be considered an element of success — this intelli- 
gent British officer claims the consideration which is due to a 
scholar and a gentleman, although he was not the highest 
exemplar of either title. He discussed " Men and Manners 
in America " neither as a philosopher nor as an artist. There 
is no great scope or originality in his speculations, no very 
profound insight; and the more refined tone of his work is 
somewhat marred by the same flippancy and aflTectation of 
superior taste, which give such a cockney pertness to so 
many of his countrymen's written observations when this 
country is the theme. Two merits, however, distinguished 
the work and yet make it worthy of attention — a better 
style, and superior powers of description. Captain Hamil- 
ton's prejudices warped his observation of our political and 
social life, and make his report thereof limited and unjust ; 
but there is a vividness and finish about his accounts of natu- 
ral beauty — such as the description of Niagara and the Mis- 
sissippi — which, although since excelled by many writers, 
native and foreign, at the time (1833) was a refreshing con- 
trast to previous attempts of a like nature. JUacJcwood 
recognized his political bias in commending the work " as 
valuable at the present crisis, when all the ancient institu- 
tions of our country are successively melting away under the 
powerful solvent of democratic institutions." 



224 AilEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. 

Parkinson was an English farmer, and therefore might 
be supi^osed capable of producing at least a valuable agricul- 
tural report ; but impartial critics declared him both impu- 
dent and mendacious. Stuart's book * owed somewhat of its ■ 
casual notoriety to the circumstance that he fled to America 
because he had killed Lord Auchinleck, Boswell's son, in a 
duel at Edinburgh ; and beguiled months of his involuntary- 
exile at Hoboken, N. Y., in writing his experience and im- 
pressions. The JEdinhurgh Review says of another of the 
countless writers on this prolific theme — Birkbeck : " Detest- 
ing his principles, we j^raise his entertaining volume." f 

Harriet Martiueau, through her Unitarian associations, 
became at once, on her arrival in the United States, intimate 
with the leading members of that highly intellectual denomi- 
nation, and thus enjoyed the best social opportunities for 
acquiring a knowledge of the coimtry and a favorable impres- 
sion of its average culture. To this advantage she added 
liberal sympathies, an earnest spirit of inquiry, and a decided 
power of descriptive writing. Accordingly we find, in her 
work, a warm appreciation of what is humane and progres- 
sive in American institutions, right and wise in society, and 
beautiful or picturesque in nature. She often adopts a view 
and makes a general statement upon inadequate grounds. 
Her generalizations are not always authentic ; but the spirit 
and execution of her work are a vast improvement upon the 
flippant detraction of less intelhgent and aspiring writers. 
As in so many instances before and since, her gravest errors, 
both as to facts and reasoning, may be traced to inferences 
from partisan testimony, or the statements of itninformed 
acquaintance — a process which hasty travellers bent on book 
making are forced to have recourse to. Where she observed, 
she recorded effectively ; when her informant was duly 
equijiped for his catechism, she " set in a note book " what 
was worth preserving ; but often, relying on hearsay evi- 

* "Three Years in America," by James Stuart, 3 vols., Edinburgli, 1823. 
\ " Notes on a Journey from Virginia to the Territory of Illinois," by Mor- 
ris Birkbeck, with a map, 8vo., Dublin, 1818. 



BRITISH TEAVELLEK8 AND WEITEKS. 225 

dence and casual statements, inevitably mistakes occurred ; 
but these do not invalidate her arguments or diminish her 
authority, when fairly provided with the opportunity to ex- 
amine herself, or correctly informed by others. Blackwood 
condemned her book with an asperity that is prima facie 
evidence that it has considerable merit. " Nothing," says 
that trenchant and Tory oracle, in reference thereto, " noth- 
ing can rectify a reformer's vision, and no conviction of 
inadequacy prevent any of the class from lecturing all man- 
Hnd." 

Of this class of books^ however, none made so strong a 
popular impression as the " Domestic Manners of the Ameri- 
cans," by Mrs. Trollope — a circumstance that the reader of 
our own day finds it difficult to explain, until he recalls and 
reflects upon the facts of the case ; for the book is sviperior 
to the average of a like scope, in narrative interest. It is 
written in a lively, confident style, and, before the subjects 
treated had become so familiar and hackneyed, must have 
proved quite entertaining. The name of the writer, how- 
ever, was, for a long period, and still is, to a certain extent, 
more identified with the unsparing social critics of the coun- 
try than any other in the long catalogue of modern British 
travellers in America. Until recently, the sight of a human 
foot protruding over the gallery of a Western theatre was 
hailed with the instant and vociferous challenge, apparently 
undisputed as authoritative, of " Trollope ! " whereupon the 
obnoxious member was withdrawn from sight ; and the in- 
ference to a stranger's mind became inevitable, that this best- 
abused writer on America Avas a beneficent, practical re- 
former. 

The truth is, that Mrs. Trollope's powers of observation 
are remarkable. What she sees, she describes with vivacity, 
and often with accurate skill. No one can read her Travels 
in Austria without acknowledging the vigor and brightness 
of her mind. Personal disappointment in a pecuniary enter- 
prise vexed her judgment ; and, like so many of her nation, 
she thoroughly disliked the political institutions of the United 
10* 



226 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

States, was on the lookout for social anomalies and personal 
defects, and persistent, like her " unreasoning sex," in attrib- 
uting all that was oiFensive or undesirable in her experience 
to the prejudice she cherished. Moreover, her experience 
itself was limited and local. She entered the country more 
than thirty years ago, at New Orleans, and passed most of 
the time, during her sojourn, amid the new and thriving but 
crude and confident Western communities, where neither 
manners nor culture, economy nor character had attained 
any well-organized or harmonious development. The self- 
love of these independent but sometimes rough pioneers of 
civilization, was wounded by the severe comments of a stran- 
ger who had shared their hospitality, when she expatiated on 
their reckless use of tobacco, their too free speech aud angu- 
lar attitudes ; but, especially, when all their shortcomings were 
declared the natural result of republican institutions. Hence 
the outcry her book occasioned, and the factitious impor- 
tance attached thereto. Not a single fault is found recorded 
by her, which our own writers, and every candid citizen, have 
not often admitted and complained of. The fast eating, 
boastful talk, transient female beauty, inadequate domestic 
service, abuse of calomel as a remedy, copious and careless 
expectoration, free and easy manners, superficial culture, and 
many other traits, more or less true now as then, here or 
there, are or have been normal subjects of animadversion. 
It was not because Mrs. Trollope did not write much truth 
about the country and the people, that, among classes of the 
latter, her name was a reproach ; but because she reasoned so 
perversely, and did not take the pains to ascertain the whole 
truth, and to recognize the compensatory facts of American 
life. But this objection should have been reconciled by her 
candor. She frankly declares that her chief object is " to 
encourage her countrymen to hold fiist by the Constitution 
that insures all the blessings which flow from established 
habits and solid principles ; " and elsewhere remarks that the 
dogma " that all men are born free and equal has done, is 
doing, and will do much harm to this fair country." Her 



BRITISH TKAVELLEES AND WKITEES. 227 

sympathies overflow toward an English actor, author, and 
teacher she encoxinters, and she feels a pang at Andre's 
grave ; but she looks with the eye of criticism only on the 
rude masses who are turning the wilderness into cities, re- 
fusing to see any prosperity or progress in the scope and 
impulse of democratic principles. " Some of the native 
political economists," she writes, " assert that this rapid con- 
version of a bearbrake into a prosperous city is the result of 
free political institutions. N"ot being very deep in such mat- 
ters, a more obvious cause suggested itself to me, in the 
unceasing goad which necessity applies to industry in this 
country, and in the absence of all resources for the idle." 
"Without discussing the abstract merits of her theory, it is 
obvious that a preconceived antipathy to the institutions of a 
country unfits even a sensible and frank writer for social criti- 
cism thereon ; and, in this instance, the writer seems to have 
knoAATi comparatively few of the more enlightened men, and 
to have enjoyed the intimacy of a still smaller number of the 
higher class of American women ; so that, with the local and 
social data she chiefly relied on, her conclusions are only 
unjust inasmuch as they are too general. She describes well 
what strikes her as new and curious ; but her first impres- 
sions, always so influential, were forlorn. The flat shores at 
the mouth of the Mississippi in winter, the muddy current, 
pelicans, snags, and bulrushes, were to her a desolate change 
from the bright blue ocean ; but the flowers and fruits of 
Louisiana, the woods and the rivers, as they opened to her 
view, brought speedy consolation ; which, indeed, was modi- 
fied by disagreeable cookery, bad roads, illness, thunder 
storms, and unpleasant manners and customs — the depressing 
influence of which, however, did not prevent her expatiating 
with zest and skill upon the camp meetings, snakes, insects, 
elections, house moving, queer phrases, dress, bugs, lingo, 
parsons, politicians, figures, faces, and opinions which came 
within her observation. 

With more perspicacity and less prejudice, she would 
haA^e acknowledged the temporary character of many of the 



?28 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

facts of tbe hour, emphasized by her pen as permanent. The 
superficial reading she .notes, for instance, was but the eager 
thirst for knowledge that has since expanded into so wide a 
habit of culture that the statistics of the book trade in the 
United States have become one of the intellectual marvels of 
the age. Her investigation as to the talent, sources of dis- 
cipline, and development, were extremely incurious and 
slight ; hence, what she says of our statesmen and men of 
letters is too meagre for comment. The only American au- 
thor she appears to have known well was Flint ; and her 
warm appreciation of his wi'itings and conversation, indicates 
what a better knowledge of our scholars and eminent profes- 
sional men would have elicited from so shrewd an observer. 
The redeeming feature of her book is the love of nature it 
exhibits. American scenery often reconciles her to the bad 
food and worse manners ; the waterfalls, rivers, and forests 
are themes of perpetual admiration. " So powerful," she 
writes of a passage down one of the majestic streams of the 
West, " was the effect of this sweet scenery, that we ceased 
to grumble at our dinners and sxippers." Strange to say, she 
was delighted with the city of Washington, extols the Capi- 
tol, and recognizes the peculiar merits of Philadelphia. In 
fact, when she writes of what she sees, apart from prejudice, 
there are true woman's wit and sense in her descriptions ; but 
she does not discriminate, or patiently inquire. Her book is 
one of impressions — some very just, and others casual. She 
was provoked at being often told, in reply to some remark, 
" That is because you know so little of America ; " and yet 
the observation is one continually suggested by her too hasty 
conclusions. With all its defects, however, few of the class 
of books to which it belongs are better worth reading now 
than this once famous record of Mrs. TroUope. It has a cer- 
tain fieshness and boldness about it that explain its original 
popularity. Its tone, also, in no small degree explains its un- 
popularity ; for the writer, quoting a remark of Basil Hall's, 
to the effect that the great difference between Americans and 
English is the want of loyalty, declares it, in her opinion, is 



BEITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 229 

the want of refinement. And it is upon this that she harps 
continually in her strictures, while the reader is offended by 
the identical deficiency in herself; and herein we find the 
secret of the popular protest the book elicited on this side of 
the water ; for those who felt they needed to be lectured on 
manners, repudiated such a female wi'iter as authoritative, 
and regarded her assumption of the office as more than gra- 
tuitous. 

The interest excited by many of the now forgotten books 
at which we have glanced, can only be compared to that 
which attends a new novel by a popular author. Curiosity, 
pique, self-love, and indignation were alternately awakened. 
Hospitable people found themselves outraged, and communica- 
tive tuft hunters betrayed ; pro\'incial self-complacency was 
sadly disturbed, and the countless readers of the land, for 
weeks, talked only of the coarse comments of Mrs. Trollope, 
the descriptive powers of Captain Hamilton, the kindly views 
of the Hon. Augustus Murray, the conceit of Basil Hall, the 
good sense of Combe, the frankness of Fanny Butler, the 
impertinence of Fid(iller, the elaborate egotism of Silk Buck- 
ingham, the scientific knowledge of Featherstonaugh and 
Lyell, the indelicate personalities of Fredrika Bremer, the 
mascuhne assurance of Miss Martineau, and the ungrateful 
caricatures of Dickens, as exhibited in their respective ac- 
counts of American life, institutions, resources, and manners. 

One of the latest of this class of Travels in America, is 
an elaborate work entitled " Civilized America," by Thomas 
Colley Grattan. Although this writer commences his book 
by defining the Americans " a people easy of access, but diffi- 
cult to understand," and declares that " no one who writes 
about the United States should be considered an oracle," he 
is behind none of his, predecessors in the complacency and 
confidence with which he handles a confessedly difficult sub- 
ject. He thinks that " it is in masses that the people of this 
country are to be seen to the greatest advantage ; " not 
apparently recognizing the fact that this is the distinctive aim 
of republican institutions — the special compensation for the 



230 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

absence of those monoj)olies and that exchisiveness whereby 
the individual in Europe is gratified at the expense of the 
multitude. He notes the " sacrifice of individual eminence, 
and consequently of personal enjoyment" — a result of the 
same spirit of humanity which cherishes manhood and woman- 
hood as such, and, therefore, cheerfully loses the chance of 
individual aggrandizement, in so far as it implies superiority 
to and immunity from the universal and equal development 
or oppoi'tunity therefor, whether of character, talent, material 
welfare, or social position. Our educational system, public 
men, some of the current political problems and parties, the 
Irish in America, relations between England and the United 
States, slavery, and other general subjects, are treated of 
with little originality, but occasionally illustrated by facts 
which to a British reader may be new and suggestive. The 
old sarcasms about the bad architecture in our cities, and the 
limited triumphs in art and literature yet achieved ; the usual 
sentimental protest against the slight local attachments, the 
hurry, and the imrecreative habits and want of taste that 
prevail ; the hackneyed complaint of im scientific regimen, 
with especial reference to the indigestible nature of dough- 
nuts, salt fish and chowder ; and the baneful variety of 
alcoholic drinks, and their vulgar names, diversify the grave 
discussion of questions of polity and character. 

It is surprising that a native of Great Britain should find 
punctuality at meals and the condition of women in Amer- 
ica themes of animadversion ; and that conceit and flippancy 
should strike him as so common on this side of the water ; 
and narrowness of mind, as well as the want of independ- 
ence, be regarded as characteristic. In these and several 
other instances, the reader familiar with life and manners in 
England, and alive to the indications of character in style 
and modes of thought, cannot but suspect him of drawing 
upon his experience at home and his own consciousness, quite 
as much as from intelligent observation here. At all events, 
it is obvious that he is piqued into indignation by some spe- 
cial experience of his own while British Consul in Boston ; 



BRITISH TKAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 231 

for that " hub of the universe " is not the nucleus about 
which either his sympathies or his magnanimity revolve. 
Great ameliorations have occurred in " Civilized America " 
since Mr. Grattan left her shores. Nothing shows the prog- 
ress of the country more emphatically than the obsolete sig- 
nificance of many of his remarks. They often do not apply 
to the United States of to-day ; and both that country and 
the reading public generally have outgrown the need and the 
taste for this kind of petty fault-finding, which fails to com- 
prehend the spirit of the people, the true scope of the insti- 
tutions, the real law of life, labor, and love, whereof the 
communities gathered on this vast and prolific continent are 
the representatives. Xot as a nursery of local manners, a 
sphere for casual social experiments, an arena for conven- 
tional development ; but as the scene of a free expansion and 
assertion of the rights of humanity, a refuge for the victuns 
of outgrown systems and over-populated countries, a home 
for man as such, a land where humanity modifies and moulds 
nationality, by virtue of the unimpeded range and frank 
recognition thereof, in the laAVS, the opportunities, the equal 
rights established and enjoyed, is America to be discussed 
and understood ; for her civilization, when and where it is 
truly developed, is cosmopolitan, not sectional — human, not 
formal. 

In 1850, the Earl of Carlisle delivered before the Me- 
chanics' Institute of Leeds a lecture embodying his observa- 
tions and comments during a tour in the United States ; 
which was subsequently published and read with much inter- 
est by his lordship's numerous friends on this side of the 
Atlantic. A candid discussion of social defects and political 
dangers is mingled, in this work,- with a just appreciation of 
the privileges and prosjDerity of the country. The American 
edition was widely circulated, and justly estimated as one of 
the most frank, kindly, and intelligent expositions of a 
familiar but suggestive theme, which had yet appeared. 
Though limited in scope, it is unpretending in tone and 
genial in feeling. 

I 



232 AMERICA ANn HEE COMMENTATORS. 

In 1862, thirty years after Mrs. Trollope gave to the 
world her opinion of tlie " Doinestic Manners of the Ameri- 
cans," her son Anthony published his book on " North 
America." * His novels illustrative of Irish and ecclesiasti- 
cal life, had made his name and abilities as a writer familiar 
on this side orf the water. These works of fiction have for 
their chief merit an adherence to fact. The characters are 
not modelled on an ideal standard, the incidents are seldom 
extraordinary, and the style is the reverse of glowing. Care- 
ful observation, good sense, an apparently conscientious re- 
gard to the truth, make them a singular exception to the 
popular novels of the day. The author is no imaginative 
enthusiast or psychological artist, but he is an intelligent and 
accurate reporter of life as he sees it, of men and things as 
they are ; and if the subject interests his reader, he will 
derive very clear and very just ideas of those forms and 
phases of British experience and economy with which these 
books so patiently deal. Mr. Trollope's account of his visit 
to the West Indies is recognized, by competent judges, as 
one of the most faitliful representations of the actual con- 
dition of those islands, and especially of the normal traits 
and tendencies of the negro, which has appeared. Accord- 
ingly, he seems to have been remarkably fitted to record with 
candid intelligence what lie saw and felt while visiting North 
America ; and this he has done. The speciality of his book 
is, that it treats of the RebelHon, and is the first elaborate 
report thereof by a Britisli eyewitness. Its defects are those 
of limited opportunities, an mifavorable period, and a super- 
ficial experience warped by certain national proclivities, which 
the feeling at work aroimd him inevitably exasperated ; and 
further modified by the circumstance that he is a Govern- 
ment employe and an English author. His spirit and intent, 
however, are so obviously manful and considerate, that his 
American readers are disarmed as soon as they are vexed, by 
whatever strikes them as unfair or indiscriminate. Yet, 
friendly as is the sentiment he challenges by his frankness, 
* "North America," by Anthony Trollope, New York, 1862. 



BKITISH TKAVELLEKS AJSTD WKITEES. 233 

good sense, and good nature, one cannot avoid feeling some- 
what impatient at the gratuitous tone of criticism, and the 
wearisome repetition and re-discussion of the most familiar 
subjects. If, as Mr. Trollope says, it has been " the ambition 
of his literary life to write a book about the United States," 
why did he not consult what has already been written, and 
give an adequate period and study to the subject ? Scarcely 
a topic upon which he dilates as a grievance, has escaped like 
treatment from scores of his predecessors in this field, and 
been humorously exposed or cleverly discussed by our own 
authors ; and yet he gravely returns to the charge, as if a 
ncAvly discovered social anomaly claimed his persj^icacious 
analysis. This unconsciousness of the hackneyed nature of 
the objections to American civilization, or want thereof, is 
the more amusing from a certain tone of didactic responsi- 
bility, common, indeed, to all English writers on America, as 
if that vast and populous country included no citizen or 
native capable of teaching her the proprieties of life and the 
princii^les of taste. We are constantly reminded of the re- 
iterating insect who " says an imdisputed thing in such a 
solemn way." Inasmuch as Mrs. TroUoj)e, who came here 
thirty years ago to open a bazaar in a bewly settled city of 
the West — which speculation failed — " with a woman's keen 
eye," saw, felt, and put " in a note book " the grievous sole- 
cisms in manners and deformities of social life which struck 
her in the fresh but crude American commvmities, her honest 
and industrious son now feels it incumbent upon him to com- 
plete the work, as " she did not regard it as part of hers to 
dilate on the nature and operation of those political arrange- 
ments which had produced the social absurdities which she 
saw ; or to explain that, though such absurdities were the 
natural resiilt of those arrangements in their newness, the 
defects would certainly pass away, while the political arrange- 
ments, if good, would remain." This, he thinks, is better 
work for a man than a woman, and therefore undertakes to 
do it — not apparently dreaming that it has been and is con- 
tinually being done by those whose lifelong acquaintance 



234 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

with the problem, to say nothing of their personal interest in 
its solution, enables them fully to comprehend and clearly to 
analyze. This instinctive self-esteem is apparently the normal 
mood with which even the kindliest and the most sensible 
English travellers comment on America. They do not conde- 
scend to examine the writings of Americans on their own 
country, and ignore the fact that the lectures, essays, ser- 
mons, and humorous sketches of our own authors, have, for 
years, advocated reforms, exposed defects, and suggested 
ameliorations which these self-constituted foreign censors pro- 
claim as original. Mr. Trollope seems extremely afraid of 
giving offence, continually deprecates the idea, and Avishes it 
Understood that it is very painful to him to find fault with 
anybody or anything in the United States, but he must cen- 
sure as well as blasne, and he means no unkiiidness. All this, 
however amiable, is really preposterous. It presupposes a 
degree of importance as belonging to his opinions, or rather 
a necessity for their expression, which seems to us quite irra- 
tional in a man of such common sense, and who has seen so 
much of the world. It is amusing, and, as a friend re- 
mai'ked, " comes from his blood, not his brain." It is the 
old leaven of self-love, self-importance, self-assertion of the 
Englishman as such. If he had passed years instead of 
months in America, and grown familiar with other circles 
besides the circle of litterateurs who so won his admiration 
in Boston, he would have found all he has written of the 
spoiled children, the hard women, the despotic landlords, dis- 
gusting railway cars. Western swindlers, bad architecture, 
official peculations, mud, dust, and desolation of Washington, 
misery of Cairo, and base, gold-seeking politicians of Amer- 
ica, overheated rooms, incongruous cuisine, and undisciplined 
juveniles, thoroughly aj^preciated, perfectly understood, and 
habitually the subject of native protest and foreign report. 
On many of these j)oints his views are quite unemphatic, 
compared to those of educated Americans ; so that his dis- 
cussion of civility vs. servility, of modern chivalry, of the 
reckless element of frontier life, of the unscrupulous " smart- 



BRITISH TRAVELLEES AOT) WEITEKS. 235 

ness" and the want of reverence in the American charac- 
ter, and the want of privacy and comfort in our gregarious 
hotels, seem to us quite as superfluous a task as to inveigh 
in England against fees, taxes, fog, game laws, low wages, 
paupei'ism, ecclesiastical ahuses, aristocratic monopolies, or 
any other patent and familiar evil. 

That " necessity of eulogium " which pressed upon Mr. 
TroUope, as it has upon so many of his countrymen in Amer- 
ica, is regarded as the evidence of extreme national sensitive- 
ness ; but he himself unwittingly betrays somewhat of the 
same weakness — if it be such — by the deep impression made 
by an individual's remark to his wife, which remark, if made 
seriously to an Englishwoman, must have come from a per- 
son not overbui'dened with sense ; and if from a man of 
intelligence, doubtless was intended as humorous. In either 
case, it would seem unworthy of notice ; but Mr. Trollope 
refers to it again and again, as if characteristic : " I never 
yet met the down-trodden subject of a despot who did not 
hug his chains." Those English flags among the trophies at 
West Point, too, much as he delighted in the picturesque 
beauty of the place, sorely haunted his mind. The fact is, 
that this personal sensibility to national claims and associa- 
tions is the instinct of humanity. Its expression here is more 
prevalent and its exactions more imperative, from the fact 
that, of all civilized countries, our own has been and is the 
chosen theme of criticism, for the reason that it is more 
experimental. In his somewhat disparaging estimate of 
Newpcft, R. I., Mr. Trollope strangely omits the chief attrac- 
tion, and that is the peculiar climate, wherein it so much 
difiers from the rest of the New England coast. He ignores 
this essential consideration, also, in his remarks upon the dis- 
tinctive physiognomy of Americans. Yet such is its influ- 
ence, combined with the active and exciting life of the 
country, that the " rosy cheeks," full habit, and j^edestrian 
habitudes of Englishmen, often, after a few years' residence, 
give place to thin jaws and frames, and comparative indifier- 
ence to exercise : the nervous temperament encroaches upon 



236 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

the sanguine ; beef and beer, port and porter, are found too 
nutritive a diet ; and a certain quickness of mind and move- 
ment, and sensibility to physical influences, transform John 
Bull even to his own consciousness. What Mr. Trollope says 
of the American press, whether just or not, comes with an 
ill grace from an Englishman, at a period Avherein have been 
so absolutely demonstrated to the world the wilful perversity 
and predetermined falsehood of the leading press of Great 
Britain. As in the case of so many of his countrymen, the 
scenery of America proved to Mr. Trollope a compensation 
for her discomforts. Niagara, the White Mountains, the 
Alleghanies, and the Upper Mississippi, are described with 
more enthusiasm than anything else but Boston hospitality. 
Of course, for this feast of beauty, so amply illustrated by 
our Avriters, he suggests that only Murray can furnish the 
Guide Book. 

It is curious that a man with such an eye for nature, and 
such an inquiring mind, should find the St. Lawrence so 
little attractive, fail to see President Lincoln, and feel no emo- 
tion at the scene of Wolfe's heroic death. Few visitors to 
" the States " have more intelligently appreciated the manli- 
ness of the frontier settlers, the sad patience there born of 
independent and lone strugglmg with nature, the immense 
cereal resources of the West, and the process of trans- 
portation thereof at Chicago and Bufialo. He follows his 
predecessors in attributing the chief glory of America to her 
provision for universal education, her mechanical contri- 
vances, and the great average comfort and intelligence. 

" The one thing," he remarks, " in which, as far as my judgment 
goes, the people of the United States have excelled us Englishmen, 
so as to justify them in taking to themselves praise which we cannot 
take to ourselves or refuse to them, is the matter of education ; 
* * * and unrivalled population, wealth, and intelligence have 
been the results ; and with these, looking at the whole masses of the 
people, I think I am justified in saying, unrivalled comfort and hap- 
piness. It is not that you, my reader, to whom, in this matter of 
education, fortune and your parents have probably been bountiful, 
would have been more happy in New York than in London. It is 



BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 237 

not that I, who, at any rate, can read and write, have cause to wish 
that I had been an American. But it is this : if you and I can 
count up in a day all those on whom our eyes may rest, and learn 
the circumstances of their lives, we shall be driven to conclude that 
nine tenths of that number would have had a better life as Ameri- 
cans than they can have in their spheres as Englishmen. 

" If a man can forget his own miseries in his journeyings, and 
think of the people he comes to see rather than of himself, I think 
he will find hhnself driven to admit that education has made life for 
the million in the Northern States better than life for the million is 
with us. 

" I do not know any contrast that would be more surprising to 
an Englishman, up to that moment ignorant of the matter, than that 
which he would find by visiting first of all a free school in London, 
and then a free school in New York. * * * jj^g female pupil at 
a free school in London is, as a rule, either a ragged pauper or a 
charity girl, if not degraded, at least stigmatized by the badges and 
dress of the charity. We Englishmen know well the type of each, 
and have a fairly correct idea of the amount of education which is 
imparted to them. We see the result afterward, when the same girls 
become our servants, and the wives of our grooms and porters. The 
female jmpil at a free school in New York is neither a pauper nor a 
charity girl. She is dressed with the utmost decency. She is per- 
fectly cleanly. In speaking to her, you cannot ii any degree guess 
whether her father has a dollar a day, or three thousand dollars a 
year. Nor will you be enabled to guess by the manner in which her 
associates treat her. As regards her own manner to you, it is always 
the same as though her father were in all respects your equal. 

" That which most surprises an English visitor, on going through 
the mills at Lowell, is the personal appearance of the men and 
women who work at them. As there are twice as many women as 
there are men, it is to them that the attention is chiefly called. 
They are not only better dressed, cleaner and better mounted in 
every respect than the girls employed at manufactories in England, 
but they are so infinitely superior as to make a stranger inmiediately 
perceive that some very strong cause must have created the differ- 
ence. * * * One would, of course, be disposed to say that the 
superior condition of the workers must have been occasioned by 
superior wages ; and this, to a certain extent, has been the cause. 
But the higher payments is not the chief cause. Women's wages, 
including all that they receive at the Lowell factories, average about 
fourteen shillings a week; which is, I take it, fully a third more 
than women can earn in Manchester, or did earn before the loss of 



238 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

the American cotton began to tell upon them. But if wages at Man- 
chester were raised to the Lowell standard, the Manchester woman 
would not be clothed, fed, cared for, and educated like the Lowell 
woman." 

Charles Lamb aptly says, that the finer in kind things are, 
the more scope there is for individual taste ; and therefore he 
was " always rather squeamish in his women and children." 
Mr. Trollope, judging of the latter by the enfants terribles 
encountered at inns and on steamboats in America, describes 
the nuisance of over-indulged and peremptory " Young 
America " with emphasis ; and also draws the line, so re- 
markably obvious in this country, between female refinement 
and vulgarity. He is doubtless right in ascribing the Ama- 
zonian manners and expression of the latter class to that mii- 
versal consideration for the sex so peculiar to our people. It 
certainly is abused, and oflfensively so by the selfish and arro- 
gant. The conduct of Southern women, during the present 
war, to Northern officers, is the best proof of their con- 
sciousness of safety by virtue of this public sentiment of 
deference and protection. But has it ever occurred to Mr. 
Trollope that this sentiment, however abused by those lack- 
ing the chivalry to respond to it, is almost a social necessity 
in a land where people are thrown together so promiscuously, 
and Avhere no ranks exist to regulate intercourse and define 
position ? Crinoline and bad manners have, indeed, done 
much to encroach upon romance, and render modern gallantry 
thoroughly conventional ; but the extravagant estimation in 
which the rights and privileges of woman are here held, is 
one of tlie most useful of our social safeguards and sanc- 
tions. Mr. Trollope pays the usual tribute of strangers to 
the beauty, intelligence, and grace of American women who 
are ladies by nature and not by courtesy ; but he draws the 
reverse picture, not unfaithfully, in this mention of a species 
of tlie female sex sometimes encountered in a public convey- 
ance : 

" The woman, as she enters, drags after her a misshapen, dirty 
mass of battered wirework, which she calls her crinoline, and which 



BRITISH TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 239 

adds as much to her grace and comfort as a log of wood does to a 
donkey, when tied to the animal's leg in a paddock. Of this she 
takes much heed, not managing it so that it may he conveyed up the 
carriage with some decency, but striking it about against men's legs, 
and heaving it with violence over people's knees. The touch of a 
real woman's dress is in itself delicate ; but these blows from a 
harpy's fins are loathsome. If there be two of them, they talk 
loudly together, having a theory that modesty has been put out of 
court by women's rights. 

" But, though not modest, the woman I describe is ferocious in 
her propriety. She ignores the whole world around her, as she sits 
with raised chin, and face flattened by affectation. She pretends to 
declare aloud that she is positively not aware that any man is even 
near her. * * * But every twist of her body, and every tone of 
her voice, is an unsuccessful falsehood. She looks square at you in 
the foce, and you rise to give her your seat. You rise from a defer- 
ence to your own old convictions, and from that courtesy which you 
have ever paid to a woman's dress, let it be worn with ever such 
hideous deformities. She takes the place from which you have 
moved without a word or a bow. She twists herself round, banging 
your shins with her wires ; while her4*hin is still raised, and her face 
is still flattened, and she directs her friend's attention to another 
seated man, as though that place were also vacant, and necessarily at 
her disposal. Perhaps the man opposite has his own ideas about 
chivalry. I have seen such a thing, and have rejoiced to see it." 

And of the spoiled children he thus discourses : 

" And then the children — babies I should say, if I were speaking 
of English bairns of their age ; but, seeing that they are Americans, 
I hardly dare to call them children. The actual age of these per- 
fectly civilized and highly educated beings may be from three to 
four. One will often see five or six such seated at the long dinner 
table of the hotel, breakfasting and dining with their elders, and 
going through the ceremony with all the gravity and more than all 
the decorum of their grandfathers. "When I was three years old, I 
had not yet, as I imagine, been promoted beyond a silver spoon of 
my own, wherewith to eat my bread and milk in the nursery; and I 
feel assured that I was under the immediate care of a nursemaid, as 
I gobbled up my minced mutton mixed with potatoes and gravy. 

" But at hotel life in the States, the adult infant lisps to the waiter 
for everything at table, handles his fish with epicurean delicacy, is 
choice in his selection of pickles, very particular that his beefsteak 
at breakfast shall be hot, and is instant in his demand for fresh ice 



240 AMEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. 

in. his water. But perhaps his — or in this case her — retreat from the 
room when the meal is over, is the chef (Voiuvre of the whole per- 
formance. The little precocious, full-hlown beauty of four signifies 
that she has completed her meal — or is ' through ' her dinner, as she 
would express it — by carefully extricating herself from the napkin 
which has been tucked around her. Then the waiter, ever attentive 
to her movements, draws back the chair on which she is seated, and 
the young lady glides to the floor. A little girl in old England would 
scramble down; but little girls in New England never scramble. 
Her father and mothei', who are no more than her chief ministers, 
walk before her out of the saloon, and then — she swims after 
them." 

The frequent change of occupation, and the hardihood 
with which misfortunes — especially pecuniary reverses — are 
met, impress him'. " Everybody," he writes, " understands 
everything, and evei'ybody intends, sooner or later, to do 
everything ; " and, " whatever turns up, the ma7i is still 
there, still unsophisticated, still unbroken." He thinks 
American coachmen the ^ost adroit in the world ; the 
houses more convenient than those of England of the same 
class ; the green knolls and open glades of Kentucky more 
like what his countrymen love in a manorial estate, than any 
land or forest elsewhere in the country ; and, of cities, gives 
the preference to Boston and Baltimore — the former on ac- 
count of its culture, and the latter because of its " hunting- 
ground " vicinity, pleasant women, and " English look." It 
is amusing to find him gravely asserting, that " the mind of 
an Englishman has more imagination than that of an Ameri- 
can," and that " squash is the pulp of the pumpkin." He 
thinks we suffer for " a national religion," and have fomid 
out that " the plan of governing by little men has certainly 
not answered;" and justly regards it as our special blessing 
to " have been able to begin at the beginning," and so, in 
many things, improve upon the Old World. Of Congress 
and Cambridge, Mr. TroUope gives details of parliamentary 
customs and educational habits, indicating wherein they differ 
from those of England. He repeats the old arguments for an 
international copyright. He discusses Canada in her present 



BEITISn TKAVELLEES AND WRITERS. 241 

and prospective political relations with singular candor, and 
frankly admits the inferiority of her material development to 
that of the United States. " Everybody travels in America," 
he observes, " and nothing is thought of distance." In this 
fact he could easily have found the exjjlanation of the dis- 
comforts of American travel, inasmuch as railroads that are 
built to lure emigrants to build towns in the wilderness, and 
cars that are intended to convey crowds of all classes, in the 
nature of the case do not admit of those refined arrange- 
ments which make foreign railways so agreeable, and the 
absence of which renders most American journeys a penance. 
Among the things which Mr. Trollope, however, finds superior, 
are canvas-back ducks, rural cemeteries, schools, asylums, city 
libraries, waterfalls, maize fields, authors, and women. But 
the special interest of his book is its discussion of the civil 
war. His own political views seem to us somewhat inconsist- 
ent. Rej)udiating the military despotism existing in France 
as a wrong to manhood and humanity, he yet thinks " those 
Chinese rascals should be forced into the harness of civiliza- 
tion." In allusion to our errors of government, he justly 
remarks, that " the material growth of the States has been 
so quick, that the political has not been able, to keep up with 
it." In some respects he does justice to the war for the 
Union, asserting its necessity, and recognizing the disinter- 
ested patriotism of the North, and the wholly inadequate 
reasons put forth by the South for treachery and revolt. Yet 
he fails to grasp the whole subject — treating the exigency as 
political exclusively, and the Rebellion as analogous to that 
of Naples, Poland, and our own Revolution. This is, to say 
the least, a most inadequate and perverse view. Not only 
had the South no wrongs to redress for which the United 
States Government were responsible, but they violated State 
not less than National rights, in their seizure of property, per- 
secution and murder of loyal citizens, and enforced votes and 
enlistments at the point of the bayonet. Citizens in their 
midst claimed and deserved Federal protection not less than 
those on this side of their lines. Moreover, the " landless 
11 



242 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

resolutes " of the South proved, in warfare, barbarians in 
sacrilegious hate ; so that, under any circumstances, it would 
have become a necessity for the North to fortify and defend 
her frontier. These circumstances make an essential differ- 
ence between this Rebellion and other civil wars : they 
aggravate its turpitude, and \dndicate the severest measures 
to repress it, irrespective of any question of political union. 
In like manner Mr. Trollope gives but a partial view of the 
feeling of America toward England. It was not sympathy in 
a mere political quarrel, between two equally justified parties, 
that she expected, and was grieved and incensed at not re- 
ceiving. Such a feeling might be unmanly, as Mr, Trollope 
thinks, and also unreasonable ; but when, for years, English 
statesmen, travellers, and journalists had taunted us with the 
slavery entailed upon the Southern States in colonial days, 
and by British authority ; .and when, at last, we had made 
the first grand step toward limiting, if not undermining the 
evil, and, by doing so, had incurred the hatred, treachery, 
and violence of the slaveholders, we had every reason to 
expect that a Christian nation, akin in blood and language, 
would throw the weight of her influence, social and jDolitical, 
into the scale of justice, instead of hastening to recognize the 
insurgents as standing before the world on an equal moral 
and civic footiug with a Government and a people they had 
cheated, defied, and were seeking to destroy for no reason 
save the constitutional election of a President opposed to the 
extension of slavery. It was this that created the disappoint- 
ment and inspired the bitterness which Mr. Trollope declares 
so unjust and unreasonable. He compares the struggle to a 
quarrel between a man and his wife, and with two parties 
throwing brickbats at each other across the street, to the 
great discomfort of neutral passengers. Mr. Gladstone re- 
cently compared it to a difliculty between two partners in 
business, the one wishing to retire from the firm, and the 
other attempting to force him to remain. Lord Brougham 
also spoke of a late treaty between England and the United 
States of America to suppress the slave trade, as " the treaty 



BRITISH TRAVELLEES AND WRITERS. 243 

of the Northern Government." It requires no special candor 
and right feeling to perceive the animus of such expressions. 
They ignore the true state of the case ; they betray a want 
of respect for historical accuracy, and an indifference, not to 
say contempt, for the Government and people of America, 
only to be explained by a brutal want of Christian sympathy, 
or mean desire to see a great and patriotic nation decimated 
and humbled. How sadly do such observations contrast with 
the just and kindly statements of De Gasparin, of John 
Bright, and of John Stuart Mill ! All the solicitude which 
agitated England and America in regard to the capture of 
the rebel envoys, about Avhich Mr. Trollope has so much to 
say, would have been avoided had Great Britain acted, 
thought, spoken, and felt in this matter witli any magnanim- 
ity. To her the safe transit of those Secession commissioners 
was of no importance ; to us it was, at the time, a serious 
misfortune. Their relinquishment, without war threats and 
war preparations, would have cost a friendly and noble nation 
no loss of dignity, no harm to private or public interests. 
The proceeding Avas assumed to be a premeditated insult, 
whereas it was purely an accident. An insult implies inten- 
tion. Li this case, the object of Captain Wilkes was mani- 
festly to perform a duty to his own, not to injure or treat 
with disrespect another country. His act was illegal, but the 
exigency was peculiar. A generous man or woman person- 
ally incommoded by the representative of a just cause, and 
in the hour of misfortune, where there was no malice, no 
impertinence, but an important end to be achieved at the ex- 
jiense of a temporary discourtesy — not real, but apparent — 
would cheerfully waive conventional rights, and, from nobil- 
ity of feeling, subdue or postpone resentment. In social life, 
examples of such forbearance and humane consideration often 
happen ; and though it may be Utopian to apply the same 
ethical code to nations and individuals — in the view of a 
Christian or even a chivalric man, such an application of the 
high and holy instincts of our nature is far from irrational. 
In that sacred chart whereon rest the hopes and the faith, the 



244 AaiEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 

precedents and the principles of Christianity — " the sjiirit we 
are of" is constantly referred to as the test of character and 
the evidence of feeling. Throughout our national sorrows, 
from the inception of this wicked Rebellion, through all its 
course, the spirit of the press and Parliament, the spirit of 
England, as far as it has foinid official expression, with a few 
memorable excei^tions, have been unjust, disingenuous, and 
inimical ; and when the history of this national crisis is 
written, the evidence of this will be as glaring as it is 
shameful. 

Mr. Trollope has lost an opportunity to realize " the am- 
bition of his literary life." His visit was too brief and un- 
seasonable for him to do anything like justice to himself or 
his subject. He visited the West in winter — a comfortless 
period, when nature is denuded of the freshness and beauty 
Avhich at more genial seasons cheer the natural "melan- 
choly " he felt there. He saw the army of the Union in its 
transition state, and beheld the country and the people when 
under the shadow of war, and that war undertaken against 
a senseless and savage mutiny. He rapidly scanned places, 
with no time to rijjen superficial acquaintance into intimacy ; 
and he wrote his impressions of the passing scene in the 
midst of hurry, discomfort, and the turbulence and gloom of 
a painfully exciting and absorbing era. Moreover, his forte 
is not political disquisition. Still, the interests involved, the 
moral spectacle apparent, the historical and social elements at 
work, were such as to inspire a humanitarian and enlighten a 
philosopher ; and if unambitious of either character, there 
remained a great duty and noble mission for an English au- 
thor — to correct specifically, to deny emphatically, the cur- 
rent misrepresentations of British statesmen and journals, 
and to vindicate a kindred and maligned people. He has 
told many wholesome truths ; he has borne witness to many 
essential facts about which the British public have hitherto, 
in spite of all evidence, professed utter incredulity. But he 
might have gone ' farther and done more, and so made his 
work signally useful now, and far more memorable hereafter. 



BKITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WEITERS. 245 

The Scotch are far more discriminating and sympathetic 
than the English in their comments and comparisons in re- 
gard to America. The affinity between the North Britons 
and the New Englanders lias often been noted. In habits of 
industry, native shrewdness, religious enthusiasm, frugal in- 
stincts, love of knowledge, and many other traits, a parallel 
may be easily traced. We have seen how genial was the 
appreciation of Mrs. Grant in her girlhood, of the independ- 
ence, harmony, and social charms of colonial life in Albany. 
Alexander Wilson both loved and honored the home he fovmd 
on our soil ; and among the Travels in America of recent 
date, which, in their liberal spirit and their sagacity, form 
honorable exceptions to British misrej^resentation, are two 
works written by Scotchmen, which om- publishers, so ready 
to reproduce books that have the piquancy of abuse or the 
flash of extravagance, with singular want of judgment have 
ignored. The first of these is an unpretending little bro- 
chure, entitled " A Tour in the United States," by Archibald 
Prentice.* This writer has been a public-spirited citizen and 
an editor in Manchester, and was thus practically fitted intel- 
ligently to examine the economical features of the country. 
Of Covenanter stock, his sympathies were drawn to the Con- 
necticut clergy ; and the graves of kindred endeared the laud 
which he visited in order to examine its physical resources 
with special reference to emigration, manufactures, trade, and 
labor. He is enthusiastic on entering, on a beautiful day, the 
harbor of New York, and, with all the zest of a practical 
economist, dwells upon the activity and scope of that com- 
mercial metropolis. "Here," he writes, "bright visions arise 
in the imagination of the utilitarian. He sees the farmer on 
the Hudson, the Mohawk, the Ohio, the Illinois, the Miami, 
and the lakes Michigan, Erie, and Ontario, cheerfully labor- 
ing in his own fields for the sustenance of the Manchester 
spinner and weaver ; he sees the potter of Horsley, the cut- 
ler of Sheffield, the cloth man^ificturer of Yorkshire, and the 
sewer and tambourer of Glasgow, in not hopeless or unre- 
* London: Charles Gilpin, 1848. 



246 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

warded toil, preparing additional comforts and enjoyments 
for the inhabitants of the American woods and j^rairies. He 
conjures up a great cooperative community, all working for 
mutual benefit ; and sees, in the universal competition, the 
universal good." He finds the usual defects, as he extends 
his observations — the cheap railroads, the fragile women, the 
over-eagerness for foreign appreciation, the inadequate agri- 
cultural science, and, above all, the monstrous evil — political, 
economical, social, moral, and religious — of slavery. But 
while all these and other drawbacks are emphasized, the 
causes and conditions are frankly stated. This writer ap- 
preciates the favorable relations of labor to capital, and, 
although an anti-protectionist, recognizes cordially the advan- 
tages here realized by honest industry and intelligent enter- 
prise in manufactures and trade. " Even the Irishman," he 
writes, " becomes commercial." " The Illinois coalfields," 
he notes, " are reached by drifts instead of shafts — ^horizon- 
tally, not perpendicularly." He lauds our comparatively 
inexpensive Government, the "moral machinery" of our 
manufacturing towns, the harmonious coexistence of so 
many religious sects. He considers the stern virtues bred by 
the hard soil and climate of New England a providential 
school, wherein the character of Western emigration was 
auspiciously predetermined. But Mr. Prentice has as keen 
an eye for the beauties of nature as for the resoui-ces of in- 
dustry. He was constantly impressed, not only with the gen- 
eral but with the specific resemblance of American scenery 
to that of Great Britain ; and compares an " opening " in the 
landscape between Baltimore and Washington to " the Esk 
below Langholm ;" the view up the Shenandoah to the Clyde 
at Auld-Brig-End, near Lanark ; the bluffs of the Ohio to 
the " irregular face which Alderley Edge presents Wilm- 
stone ; " and Lake Cham2:)lain to Windermere and Ulswater ; 
while he finds the " footAvay to the Charter Oak, at Hart- 
ford, worn like the path to the martyr's grave in the Old 
Friar's Churchyard in Edinburgh. Although thus warmly 
alive to native associations, he is not less an ardent advocate 



BRITISH TRAVELLERS AND AVRITERS. 247 

for mutual forbearance and wise fellowship between Great 
Britain and America. " The citizens of the United States," 
he remarks, " do not dislike Englishmen individually. On 
the contrary, they are rather predisposed to like them, and to 
pay them most kind and respectful attention when they visit 
America. Their dislike is to John Bull — the traditional, big, 
bullying, borough-mongering and monopolizing John Bull ; 
the John Bull as he was at the time of the American and the 
French Revolutions, before Catholic emancipation, before 
the repeal of the Orders in Council, before the Reform Bill." 
And, in conclusion, he thus benignly adjures the spirit of a 
candid mutual appreciation and harmony : '' Would that men 
in both coimtriea would drop all narrow jealousies, and, look- 
ing to the great mission of the Anglo-Saxon family, earnestly 
resolve that the sole struggle between those of its branches 
only geographically separated, should be which most jealously 
and most energetically should labor to Christianize and civil- 
ize the whole human race." 

The other Scotch ^va-iter Avhose recent observations are 
worthy of that consideration which an honest purj)ose, ele- 
vated sympathies, and conscientious intelligence, should ever 
secure, is James Stirling,* a member of Parliament, whose 
" Letters from the Slave States," published seven years ago, 
but, strange to say, not reprinted here, feems to have antici- 
pated many of the subsequent political events and social 
manifestations. This writer has evidently made a study of 
economical questions. He has that mental discipline which 
experience, legislative and professional, insures. Firm in his 
opinions, but liberal and humane in spirit, there is a combina- 
tion of sagacity and generous feeling in his tone of mind 
which commands respect. These letters are candid and 
thoughtful ; and, while some of the views advanced chal- 
lenge argument, the general scope is just and wise. Mr. 
Stirling was chiefly struck with the rapidity of growth in the 
American settlements, and records many specific and authen- 

* " Letters from the Slave States," by James Stirling. London : J. "W. 
Parker, 1851. 



248 AlVIEKICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

tic facts illustrative of this peculiar feature in Western civili- 
zation, of which he calls railways " the soul." The con- 
ditions of success for new communities he regards as, first, 
an energetic population ; second, fertile soil ; third, favorable 
climate ; and, fourth, easy means of communication ; and he 
explains the prosperity and the failure of such experiments 
by these conditions. He is opposed to protection and to 
universal suifrage, and finds ample evidence to sustain these 
opinions in his observations in the United States. The sub- 
ject, however, which mainly occupies his attention, is the 
\ actual influence and efiects of slavery, the difiiculties in the 
way of its abolition, and the probable consequence of its 
existence upon the destiny and development of the nation. 
His economical argument is strong. He indicates the com- 
parative stagnation and degradation of the Slave States with 
detail, describes the status of the poor whites, notes the his- 
torical facts, and seems to anticipate the climax which three 
years later involved the country in civil war. " The South," 
he writes, " seems to me in that mood of mind which fore- 
runs destruction ; " and elsewhere observes that " the acci- 
dent of cotton has been the ruin of the negro." He recog- 
nizes a "moral disunion" in the opposition of parties and 
social instincts in regard to slavery. " Like most foreign- 
ers," he observes, " I find it very diflicult to appreciate the 
construction of American parties. There is a party called 
the Southern party, which is distinctly in favor of separation. 
It will carry along with it, notwithstanding its most insane 
policy, a great proportion of the low white population. 
Opposed to it is the conservative intelligence of the South." 
Mr. Stirling justly regards the " want of concentration " as 
the characteristic defect of American civilization ; and re- 
gards the " aristocracy of the South " as almost identical 
with " the parvenu society of the mushroom cities " in 
Britain ; and observes significantly that it is " on the impor- 
tance of cotton to England that the philosophers of the 
South delight to dwell." Indeed, throughout his obser\^a- 
tions on the Slave States, there is a complete recognition of 



BRITISH TRAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 249 

the facts and principles which the North has vainly striven 
for months past to imjjress upon English statesmen ; and this 
testimony is the more valuable inasmuch as it is disinter- 
ested, and was recorded before any overt act of rebellion had 
complicated our foreign relations. Although this writer's 
experience in Alabama is more favorable to the social con- 
dition of that State than what fell under the observation of 
Mr. Olmsted, yet the latter's economical statistics of the 
Slave States are amply confirmed by Mr. Stirling, He is 
equally struck with the contrast between the two parts of 
the country in regard to providence and comfort. He agrees 
with other travellers in his estimate of popular defects, and 
is especially severe upon the evils of hotel life in the United 
States, and the superficial and showy workmanship which 
compares so unfavorably with substantial English manufac- 
tures. Many of these criticisms have only a local applica- 
tion, yet they are none the less true. Duelling, lynching, 
" hatred of authority," " passion for territory," inadequate 
police, and reckless travelling, are traits which are censured 
with . emphasis. But the charm of these letters consists in 
the broad and benign temper of the writer, when from spe- 
cific he turns to general inferences, and treats of the country 
as a whole, and of its relations to the Old World and to 
humanity. It is refreshing to find united in a foreign critic 
such a clear perception of the drawbacks to our national 
prosperity and incongruous elements in our national develop- 
ment, with an equally true insight and recognition of the 
individual and domestic rectitude, and the noble and high 
tendencies of life and character. A few random extracts 
will indicate these qualities of the man and merits of the 
writer : 

""We have experienced, even from utter strangers, au officious 
kindness and sympathy that can only arise from hearts nurtured in 
the daily practice of domestic virtues." 

" I have no fears but that the follies and crudities of the present 
effervescent state of American society will pass away, and leave be- 
hind a large residuum of solid worth." 
11* 



250 AMERICA AJJfD HEE COMMENTATOKS. 

" I cannot overlook that latent force of virtue and wisdom, whicli 
makes itself, as yet, too little felt in public affairs, but whicli assuredly 
is there, and will come forth, I am convinced, Avhen the hour of trial 
comes to save the country." 

"The American nation wiU wrestle victoriously with these social 
and political hydras." 

Mr. Stirling gives a most true analysis of an American 
popular speaker in his estimate of Beecher. He discrimi- 
nates well the local traits of the country, calling Florida the 
"Alsatia of the Union," because it is such a paradise for 
sportsmen and squatters ; and explaining the superiority in 
race of the Kentuckians by their hunting habits and progeni- 
tors. "The little step," he writes, " from the South to the 
North, is a stride from barbarism to civilization — a step from 
the sixteenth to the nineteenth century." 

Of the physiognomy of the people he says : " You read 
upon the nation's brow the extent of its enterprise and the 
intensity of its desires. The deepest-rooted cause of Ameri- 
can disease is the overworking of the brain and the over- 
excitement of the nervous system." 

Equally clear and earnest, humane and noble, is his view 
of the relation of this country to Great Britahi : " Never 
were two nations," he writes, " so eminently fitted to aid and 
comfort each other in the vast work of civilization, than Eng- 
land and America." He reproaches Great Britain with her 
indifference, as manifest in sending second-class ambassadors 
to the United States ; and invokes " the spiritual ruler, the 
press," to do its part, " by speaking more generously and 
wisely." If the prescience of this wi'iter is remarkable in 
estimating aright the temper and tendencies of Southern trea- 
son while yet latent, and of Northern integrity and patriot- 
ism before events had elicited their active development, no 
less prophetic is his appeal to English magnanimity : 

" Why, in God's name, should we not give them every assurance 
of respect and affection ? Are they not our children, blood of our 
blood and hone of our bone ? Are they not progressive, and fond 
of power, like ourselves ? Are they not our best customers ? Have 



BRITISH TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 251 

they not the same old English, manly virtues ? What is more befit- 
ting for us Englishmen, than to watch with intense study and deep- 
est sympathy the momentous strivings of this noble people ? It is 
the same fight we ourselves are fighting — the true and absolute 
supremacy of Eight. Surely nothing can more beseem two great 
and kindred nations, than to aid and comfort one another in that 
career of self-ennoblement, which is the end of all national as well 
as individual existence."* 

* " The stupendous greatness of England is factitious, and will only be- 
come natural when that empire shall have found its real centre : that centre 
is the United States." — " llie New Rome ; or, Tlie United States of the 
World" (iVcw York, 1843). 

A remarkably bold and comprehensive theory of American progress, 
unity, and empire, by Theodore Po\?che and Charles Goepp — one an Ameri- 
canized German, the other a Teutonic philosopher. In this little treatise the 
geography, politics, races, and social organization of the United States are 
analyzed, and shown to be " at work upon the fusion of all nations — not of 
this continent alone, but of all continents — into one people." 



CHAPTEE YII. 

ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 

It has often been remarked, that there is a fashion in 
bookcraffc, as in every other phase aiid element of human 
society ; and the caprices thereof are often as inexphcable 
and fantastic as in manners, costmne, and other less intellect- 
ual phenomena. The history of modern literature indicates 
extreme fluctuations of j^opular taste. Waller and Cowley 
introduced the concetti of the Itahans into English verse, 
which, in Elizabeth's reign, was so preeminent for robust afflu- 
ence ; in Pope's day we had satire and sense predominant ; 
Byron initiated the misanthropic and impassioned style ; 
while Steele and Addison inaugurated social criticism, the 
lake poets a recurrence to the simplicity of nature, and the 
Scotch reviewers bold analysis and liberal reform. But the 
imiform tone of books and criticism in England for so many 
years, in relation to America, is one of those literary phe- 
nomena the cause of Avhich must be sought elsewhere than 
among the whims and oddities of popular taste or the caprice 
of authors. A French writer, at one period, declared it was 
the direct result of official bribery, to sto]3 emigration ; but 
its motives were various, and its origin far from casual or 
temporary ; and the attitude and animus of England during 
the war for the Union, give to these systematic attacks and 
continuous detraction a formidable significance. The Ameri- 
can abroad may have grown indifferent to the derogatory 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF A3IERICA. 253 

facts or fictions gleaned for Galigyiani's Messenger, and 
served up with his daily breakfast ; he may treat the prejudice 
and presumption of English censors Avith amusing non- 
chalance, when discussing them Avith an esteemed and kindly 
friend of that race ; but the subject assumes a more grave 
aspect, when he finds his country's deadly struggle for nation- 
ality against a selfish and profane oligarchy, understood and 
vindicated by the press of Turin and St. Petersburg, and 
maligned or discouraged by that of London. Cockneyism 
may seem unworthy of analysis, far less of refutation ; but, 
as Sydney Smith remarked by way of apology for hunting 
small game to the death in his zeal for reform, " in a country 
surrounded by dikes, a rat may inundate a province ; " and it 
is the long-continued gnawing of the tooth of detraction 
that, at a momentous crisis, let in the cold flood at last upon 
the nation's heart, and quenched its traditional love. 

We have seen how popular a subject of discussion were 
American manners, institutions, and character, by British 
writers ; and it is amusing, in the retrospect, to consider with 
what avidity were read, and with what self-confidence were 
written, these monotonous protests against the imj)erfect 
civilization prevalent in the United States. That there was a 
certain foundation for such discussion, and a relation between 
the institutions of the country and the behavior of its people, 
cannot be denied ; but both were exaggerated, and made to 
pander infinitely more tf> prejudice than to truth. The same 
investigation applied to other lands in the same spirit, would 
have furnished quite as salient material ; and the antecedents 
as well as the animus of most of these self-appointed cen- 
sors should have absolved their attacks from any power to 
irritate. The violations of refinement and propriety thus 
" set in a note book " were by no means universal. Many of 
them were temporary, and, taken at their best significance, to 
a philosophical mind bore no proportion to the more impor 
tant traits and tendencies which invite the attention and 
enlist the s^mipathy of lovers of humanity. It is remark- 
able, also, that the most severe comments came from persons 



254 A3IEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. 

Avhose experience of the higher usages and refinements of 
social life was in the inverse ratio of their critical complaints. 
Lord Carlisle found, in the vast social possibilities 'of this 
country, an interest which rendered him indifferent to the dis- 
comfort and the anomalies to Avhich his own habits and asso- 
ciations might have naturally made him sensitive ; while the 
latter exclusively occupied Dickens, whose early experience 
had made him familiar with the least elegant and luxurious 
facilities of life. The arrant cockneyism and provincial im- 
pertinence of many of these superficial and sensation writers, 
on a subject whose true and grand relations they were incapa- 
ble of grasping, and the mercenary or sycophantic motive of 
many of their tirades, were often exposed ; w^hile in cases 
where incidental popular errors were truly stated, the justice 
of the criticism Avas acknowledged, and, in some instances, 
practically acted upon. The reckless expectoration, angular 
attitudes, and intrusive curiosity which formed the staple 
reproach, have always been limited to a class or section, and 
are now comparatively rare ; and these and similar sujierficial 
defects, when gravely treated as national, seem almost devoid 
of significance, when the grand human worth, promise, and 
beauty of our institutions and opportimities as a people, are 
considered and compared with the iron caste, the hopeless 
routine, the cowed and craven status of the masses in older 
and less homogeneous and unhampered communities. 

We must look far back to realize the prevalent ignorance 
in regard to this coimtry wherein prejudice found root and 
nurture. In colonial days, many bitter and perverse records 
found their way to tlie press ; and Colonel Bai're said to the 
elder Quincy, in England, before the Revolutionary war : 
" When I returned to tliis country, I was often speaking of 
America, and could not help speaking Avell of its climate, 
soil, and inhabitants ; but — will you believe it ? — more than 
two thirds of the people of this island thought the Ameri- 
cans were all negroes." 

Goldsmith's muse, in I'/BS, warned the impoverished peas- 
ants, eager to seek a new home in the Western hemisphere, 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AilERICA. 255 

against perils in America so imaginary, that they ^rould pro- 
voke only smiles but for the melodious emphasis whereby 
ignorance and error were thus consecrated. 

And after our independence was acknowledged, English- 
men regarded it as a strictly jiolitical fact. We were inde- 
pendent of their Government, but not of themselves — the 
least of them assuming superiority, patronage, and critical 
functions, as a matter of course ; so that Americans v.'ith any 
intelligence or manliness came inevitably to sympathize with 
Heine's estimate : " The English blockheads — God forgive 
them ! I often regard them not at all as my fellow beings, 
but as miserable automata, — machines whose motive power is 
egotism." That insular and inevitable trait found expression, 
as regards America, through the Quarterly Reviews, Monthly 
Magazines, and a rapid succession of " Travels." 

A pregnant cause of temporary alienation, fifty years 
ago, may be recognized in the last war with Great Britain. 
Our naval skill and prowess were a sore trial to the pride of 
Englishmen ; although some of the popular authors of that 
day, hke Southey, frankly acknowledged this claim to res23ect. 
" Britain had ruled the waves. So her poets sang ; so nations 
felt — all but this young nation. Her trident had laid them all 
prostrate ; and how fond she was of considering this emblem 
as identified with the sceptre of the world ! Behold, then, the 
flag which had everywhere reigned in triumph supreme, send- 
ing forth terror from its folds — behold it again and again and 
again lowered to the Stars and Stripes which had risen in the 
new hemisphere ! The spectacle was magnificent. Tlie Euro- 
pean expectation that we were to be crushed, was turned into 
a feeling of admiration unbounded. Our victories had a moral 
efi:ect far transcending the number or size of their ships van- 
quished. For such a blow upon the mighty name of Eng- 
land, after many idle excuses, she had, at last, no balm so 
effectual as that it was inflicted and could only have been 
inflicted by a race sprung from herself." * 

* " Occasional Productions : Political, Diplomatic, and Miscellaneous," by 
the late Richard Rush, Philadelphia, 1860. 



256 AMERICA AND HER COMMEISTTATOKS. 

Coincident with or ere long succeeding this naval pres- 
tige, our commercial marme advanced in character and pros- 
i:»erity. The cotton of the South became an essential com- 
modity to Great Britain. In New England, manufactures 
were firmly established, with important mechanical improve- 
ments and facilities ; while the Western States became more 
and more the granary of Europe. New territorial acqui- 
sitions, increase of mines, and a system of public insti'uction, 
which seemed to guarantee an improved generation of the 
middle and lower class — these, and other elements of growth, 
power, and plenty, tended to foster the spirit of rivalry and 
jealous criticism, and to lessen the complacent gaze where- 
with England beheld her long chain of colonial possessions 
begird the globe. Thus a variety of circumstances united to 
aggravate the prejudice and encourage the animadversions of 
English travellers in America, and to make them acceptable 
to their countrymen. And it is a curious fact for the philoso- 
pher, an auspicious one for the humanitarian, that the under- 
current of personal and social goodwill, as regards individu- 
als, of sympathy, respect, and, in many instances, warmer 
sentiments, flowed on uninterrupted ; individual friendships 
of the choicest kind, hospitalities of the most frank and gen- 
erous character, mutual interests and feelings in literature, 
religion, philanthropy, and science, consecrated the private 
intercourse and enriched the correspondence of select intelli- 
gences and noble hearts on opposite sides of the Atlantic. 
But the record of the hour, the utterances of the press, w^ere 
as we have seen. 

The imi)ortance attached to the swarm of English Travels 
abusive of America, upon calm reflection, appears like a 
monomania ; and equally preposterous was the sensitiveness 
of oiir people to foreign criticism. Their exceptional fast 
eating, inquisitiveness, tobacco cliewing, ugly i)ublic build- 
ings, sprawling attitudes, and local lingo, Avere engrossed in 
so huge a bill of indictment, that their political freedom, 
social equality, educational privileges, imprecedcnted material 
prosperity, benign laws, and glorious country, seemed to 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEKICA. 257 

shrink, for the moment, into insignificance before the mo- 
notonous scurrility and hopeless auguries of their censors. 
It was not considered that the motive and method of the 
most of these caustic strictures rendered them innocuous ; 
that, to use the test of an able writer in reference to another 
class of narrow minds, they " endeavored to atone by misan- 
thropic accuracy for imbecility in fimdamental principles ; " 
that few English men or women can write an authentic report 
of social and political facts in America, differences of habit 
and opinion therein being more fierce by approximation, 
thereby destroying the true perspective ; add to which inabil- 
ity, the miserable cockney spirit, the dependent and subser- 
vient habit of mind, the underbred tone, want of respect for and 
sympathy with humanity as such, limited powers of observa- 
tion, controlling prejudice, imaccustomed consideration, and 
native brutality, which proclaimed the incompetency and dis- 
ingenuousness of the lowest class of these once formidable 
scribblers ; and we realize why " folly loves the martyrdom 
of fame," and recognize an identical perversion of truth and 
good manners as well as human instincts as, in the ignorant ar- 
rogance which, in their own vaunted land of high civilization, 
incarcerated Montgomery, Hunt, and De Foe, exiled Shelley, 
blackguarded Keats, and envenoms and vulgarizes literary 
criticisms to-day in the Saturday Heview — ignoring at home, 
as well as abroad, the comprehensive, the sympathetic, and 
the Christian estimate both of genius, communities, and 
character. 

The prevalent feeling in relation to this injustice and un- 
kindness of English writers on America, forty years ago, 
found graceful expression in a chapter of the Sketch Book, 
the first literary venture heartily recognized for its merits of 
style and sentiment, which a native author had given to the 
" mother country." Iiwing comments on the singular but 
incontrovertible fact, that, while the English admirably re- 
port their remote travels, no people convey such prejudiced 
views of countries nearer home. He attributes the vulgar 
abuse lavished on the United States by the swarm of visitors 



258 AIHEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

from Great Britain, first, to the misfortune that the worst 
class of English travellers have assumed this task ; secondly, 
to the prejudice against democratic institutions ; thirdly, to 
the lack of comforts in travelling here, whereby the humor is 
rendered splenetic ; fourthly, to disappointed avarice and en- 
terprise ; and, finally, to jealousy, and a degree of considera- 
tion and hospitality to which men of tlie class of Birmingham 
and Manchester agents, being wholly unaccustomed, they wei'e 
spoiled instead of being conciliated thereby. He descants, 
with a good sense equally applicable to the present hour, 
upon the short-sighted policy of incurring the resentment of 
a young and growing nation having a common language and 
innumerable mutual interests ; and advances the claim which 
America possesses to every magnanimous people of Europe, 
as constituting the asylum of the oppressed and unfortunate. 
Since this amiable and just protest was written, the intellect- 
ual progress of the country has been as remarkable as the 
increase of its territory, joopulation, resources, trade, and 
manufactures ; while even the diplomatic conservatives across 
the sea, recognize in the United States a power ^dtally asso- 
ciated with that traditional " balance " Avhereon the peace and 
prosperity of the civilized world are thought to depend. But 
the improved and enlarged tone of foreign criticism has not 
quelled the original antipathy or prejudice, indifference or 
animosity of England — as the rabid and perverse comments 
of British journals, at this terrible crisis of our national life, 
too sadly demonstrate. The same wilful ignorance, the same 
disingenuous statements, the same cold sneers and defiant sar- 
casms find expression in the leading organs of English opin- 
ion to-d<iy, as once made popular the shallow journals of the 
commercial travellers and arrogant cockneys ; so that we and 
they may revert to Irving's gentle rebuke, now that he is in 
his grave, and feel, as of old, its strict justice and sad neces- 
sity. Hear him : 

" Is this golden bond of kindred sjanpatliies, so rare between 
nations, to be broken forever ? Perhaps it is for the best : it may 
dispel an illusion wbicli migbt have kept us in mental vassalage; 



ENGLISH AEUSE OF AMERICA. 269 

vrhicli might have interfered occasionally with our true interests, 
an,(i prevented the growth of proper national pride. But it is hard 
to give up the kindred tie ; and there are feelings dearer than inter- 
est, closer to the heart than pride, that will still make us cast back a 
look of regret, as we wander fiirther and fartlier from the paternal 
roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent that would repel 
the affections of the child." 

And Allston echoed Irving's seuse and sentiment with 
genial emphasis : 

" "While the manners, while the arts, 
That mould a nation's soul, 
Still cling around our hearts. 
Between let ocean roll, 
Our joint communion breaking with the sun : 
Yet still from either beach. 
The voice of blood shall reach. 
More audible than speech, 
' We are one.' " 

The reader of the present day, who is inclined to doubt 
the justice of any reference to this contemptible class of 
writers, as representatives of English feeling toward Amer- 
ica, has but to consult the best periodical literature, and note 
the style and imprint of the books themselves, to recognize 
in the fact of their eligible publication and reception, an abso- 
lute proof of the consideration they enjoyed ; and this, be it 
remembered, in spite of the known character and objects of 
the authors, whose position and associations unfitted them for 
social critics and economical reporters such as an intelligent 
gentleman could endure, far less accord the slightest personal 
or hterary credit. Ashe is openly described as a swindler ; 
Faux as " low ; " Parkinson was a common gardener ; Fearon 
a stocking-weaver. Cobbett, who is the last person to be sus- 
pected of aristocratic prejudices, and was the most practical 
and perverse of democrats, observed, in reading the fasti- 
dious comments of one of these impudent travellers, upon 
an American meal, that it was " such a breakfast as tlie fel- 
low had never before tasted ; " and the remark explahis the 
presumption and ignorance of many of this class of writers, 



260 AMERICA AJ^D HEK COMMENTATORS. 

who, never before having enjoyed the least social considera- 
tion or private luxury, became, like a beggar on horseback, 
intoxicated therewith. 

Even a cursory glance at the catalogue of books thus pro- 
duced will indicate how j)opular was the theme and how 
audacious the writers. "We remember falling in with a clever 
but impoverished professor, several years ago, in Italy, who 
had resided in this country, but found himself in Europe with- 
out means. In obedience to an appeal which reached us, we 
sought his economical lodging, and found him pacing up and 
down a scantily furnished chamber, every now and then seizing 
a pen and rapidly noting the result of his cogitations. He had 
been offered, by a London publisher, a handsome gratuity to 
furnish, within a specified period, a lively anti-democratic 
book on life and manners in America. The contract, he 
assured us, provided that there should be enough practical 
details, especially in regard to the physical resources of the 
country, to give an air of solid information to the work. 
There were to be a vein of personal anecdote, a few original 
adventures, some exaggerated character painting, and a little 
enthusiasm about scenery : but all this was to be well spiced 
Ivith ridicule ; and the argument of the book was to demon- 
strate the inevitable depreciation of mind, manners, and en- 
joyment under the influence of democratic institutions. The 
poor author tasked his memory and his invention to follow 
this programme, without a particle of conviction in the em- 
phatic declaration of liis opinions, or any sympathy with 
the work other than what was derived from its lucrative 
reward. The incident illustrates upon Avhat a conventional 
basis the rage for piquant Travels in America rested. 

Contemporary periodical literature echoed constantly the 
narrow comments and vapid faultfinding of this class of 
English travellers, most of whose sneers may be found re- 
peated with zest in the pages of the Quarterly and Black- 
wood. Somewhat of the personal prejudice of these articles 
is doubtless to be ascribed to political influences. Then, as 
now, the encroachment of democratic opinions excited the 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 261 

alaiin of the conservatives. The reform party had made 
extraordinary advances, and the extension of the right of 
suffrage became the bugbear of the aristocracy. To repre- 
sent the country where that right had such unlimited sway, 
as demoralized thereby, became the policy of all but the so- 
called radical writers ; and the Reviews, fifty years ago, 
exhibited the worst side of American life, manners, and gov- 
ernment, for the same reason that the London Times and 
Blackioood 's Magazine * to-day persist, in the face of truth 
and history, in ascribing the Southern Rebellion to repub- 
lican institutions, instead of their greatest bane and most 
anomalous obstacle on this continent — slavery. Thus the 
organs of literature and opinion encouraged the cockney 
critics in their flippant strictures upon this country, and did 
much to prolong and disseminate them where the English 
language is spoken. But the journals of the United States 
were not less trenchant on the other side. In the North 
American Mevieto^ especially, several of the most presuming 
and ignorant of the books in question Avere shown xij) with 
keen and wise irony, and an array of argumentative facts 
that demolished their pretensions effectually. It should be 
remembered, in regard to this period, when expediency, fash- 
ion, and prejudice combined to make our country the favorite 
target of opprobrious criticism in Great Britain, tliat Amer- 
ica began to excite fears for that " balance of power " which 
was the gauge of political security among the statesmen of 
that day. Moreover, the literary society then and there had 
not been propitiated by success on this side of the water, nor 
its respect excited by the intellectual achievements which 
have since totally reversed the prophecies and the judgments 
of English reviewers ; nor had the United States then be- 
come, as now, the nation of readers whose favor it was the 
interest as well as the pride of popular authors abroad to win 

* " It would perhaps be too much to say that the tendencies of our Consti- 
tution toward democracy have been checked solely by a view of the tattered 
and insolent guise in which republicanism appears in America." — Blackwood's 
Mag., 1862. 



262 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOKS. 

and cherish. In reverting to some of the articles which 
proved most offensive and to the tone of all that more or less 
sanctioned the spirit of vituperative travellers in America, it 
should also be considered that private feeling, in certain 
instances, lent vigor to the critical blows. Some of the 
writers had been annoyed by the intrusion or disgusted with 
the indelicacy of pertinacious and underbred tourists from 
this side of the Atlantic. Many were the current anecdotes 
illustrative of Yankee impudence which the friends of 
Southey^ Maria Edgeworth, and Sir Walter Scott used to 
relate — anecdotes that, unfoi'timately, have foxmd their paral- 
lels since in the experience of Carlyle, Tennyson, and other 
admired living writers. And, although these and their pre- 
decessors have found reason to bless the " nation of bores," 
as in many instances their most apf)reciative and remunerative 
audience, personal pique did and stfll does sharpen the tone 
and scope of British authorship Avhen America is referred to, 
as in the case of Sydney Smith,* whose investments were 
unfortunate, or Leigh Hunt, whose copyrights were invaded, 
or Dickens and other British lions, who found adulation and 
success less a cause for gratitude than for ridicule ; while 
every popular British novelist has a character, an anecdote, 
or an illustration drawn from traditional caricatures of 
American manners and speech. A comprehensive mind and 
a generous heart turns, however, from such ephemeral mis- 
representation and casual reproach as the bookwrights and 
reviewers in question delighted in, not so much vexed as 
wearied thereby ; but it is a more grave reflection upon Eng- 
lish probity and good sense, that so many of her standard 
writers, or those who aspire to be such, are disinclined to 
ascertain the facts of histoiy and social life in America. 

* Notwithstanding the deserved rebuke ho administered to our State 
delinquency in his American letters, Sydney Smith vindicates his claim to the 
title of Philo-Yankeeist. No British writer has better appreciated the insti- 
tutions and destiny of the United States. lie recognized cordially the latent 
force of Webster, the noble eloquence of Channing, and the refined scholar- 
ship of Everett. " I will disinherit you," he playfully writes to his daughter, 
" if you do not admire everything written by Franklin." 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AilEKICA. 263 

Such wilful errors as those of Lord Mahon and Alison, to 
say nothing of the vast display of ignorance evoked by the 
recent discussion in British journals of the Rebellion in 
America, are utterly unworthy of men of professed candor and 
scholarship in this age. The specific objections to American 
civilization, political and social, emphasized with such zeal 
and imanimity, by certain English w^riters, are often just and 
true ; but the statement thereof is none the less disingenu- 
ous because the compensatory facts are withheld, and inci- 
dental, particular, and social fiiults treated as normal and 
national. This kind of sophistry runs through the Travels, 
Jomnals, and conversation of that illiberal class of British 
critics who, then as now, from policy, prejudice, or personal 
conceit or disappointment, habitually regard every qiiestion, 
character, and production of American origin with dislike 
and suspicion. 

This inveterate tendency to look at things exclusively 
from the point of view suggested by national prejudices, is 
apparent in the most casual notice of American localities. A 
writer in Blackwoocfs Magazine^ describing his visit to the 
" Cave of the Regicides," at New Haven, is disgusted by 
the difference of aspect and customs there exhibited from 
those familiar to him at the old seats of learning in England ; 
and, instead of ascribing them to the .simple habits and lim- 
ited resources of the place, with a curious and dogmatic per- 
versity, finds their origin in political and historical opinions, 
about which the students and professors of Yale care little 
and know less ; as a few quotations from the article will 
indicate : 

" I suspect the person who leaned over the bulwarks of the 
steamer and gave me the facts, was a dissenting minister going up to 
be at his college at this important anniversary. There Avas a tone in 
his voice which sufficiently indicated his sympathies. The regicides 
were evidently the calendared saints of his religion." * * * 

* * * " The streets were alive with bearded and mustachcd 
youth ; but they wore hats, and flaunted not a rag of surplice or 

* Blackwood's Mag.^ vol. Ixi., p. 333. 



264 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. 

gown. They are devoutly eschewed as savoring too much of popery ; 
nor master, doctor, or scholar appears with the time-honored de- 
cency which, to my antiquated notion, is quite inseparable from the 
true regimen of a university." 

" It was really farcical to see the good old president confer de- 
grees with an attempt at ceremony, which seemed to have no rubric 
but extemporary convenience and the despatch of business." * * * 

" In this college one sees the best that Puritanism could produce ; 
and I thought what Oxford and Cambridge might have become, 
under the invading reforms of the usurpation, had the Protectorate 
been less impotent to reproduce itself." 

The memorable papers which first established the reputar 
tion of Dickens, curiously indicate the prevalence of this 
deprecatory and venal spirit in English writers on America, 
at a later period. The elder Weller, in suggesting to Sami- 
vel his notable plan for the escape of Pickwick from the 
Fleet prison, by concealing himself in a " planner forty," sig- 
nificantly adds : " Have a passage ready taken for 'Merriker. 
Let the gov'ner stop there till Mrs, Bardell 's dead, and then 
let him come back and write a book about the 'Merrikens 
as '11 pay all his expenses, and more, if he blows 'em up 
enough." 

The preeminence of the British colonies in America early 
proved the Anglo-Saxon destiny of this continent. The long 
wars with the aborigines, and the memorable struggle be- 
tween the French and English, resulting in the confirmed 
possession and sway of the latter rule and colonies, and, 
finally, the American Revolution and its immediate and later 
consequences, furnish to a j)hilosophic and benevolent mind 
so remarkable an historical series of events, combining to 
results of such infinite significance, not to this country and 
nation alone, but to the Avorld and himianity, that it is sur- 
prising English speculation and criticism so long continued 
narrow, egotistic, and unsympathiziug. Noble exceptions, 
indeed, are to be remembered. Chatham, the most heroic, 
Burke, the most philosophic of British statesmen, early and 
memorably recognized the claims, the character, and the des- 
tiny of our country ; and many of the intellectual nobility 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 265 

of Great Britain, in the flush of youthful aspii-ations, baflled 
by poKtical or social exclusiveness, turned their hopes and 
their tributes toward the Western continent. But among the 
numerous English visitors who imdertook to describe, to illus- 
trate, and to criticize nature, government, and society in the 
United States for the benefit of their countrymen, few have 
proved adequate or just ; and still less is the number who 
rose to the philosophy of the subject. 

Many of the French writers seize upon practical truths of 
universal interest, or evolve the sentiment of the theme with 
zest : either process gives a vital charm to descriptions and 
speculations, and places the reader in a genuine human rela- 
tion with the writer. The same distinction between the Eng- 
lish and French method of treating our condition, history, 
and character, is observable in the current literature of both 
countries, as well as in the w^orks of their respective travel- 
lers. How rarely ia an English writer do we encounter epi- 
sodical remarks so generous in tone as this page from Miche- 
let's little treatise, " La Mer " : 

" L'Amcrique, est le desir. Elle est jeune, et elle brMe d'etre en 
rapport avec le globe. Sur son superbe continent, et an milieu de 
taut d'£tats, elle se croit pourtant solitaire. Si loin de sa mere 
TEurope, elle regarde vers ce centre de la civilization, comme la 
terre vers le soleil, et tout ce qui la rapproche du grand luminaire la 
fait palpiter, qu'on en juge par Tivresse, par les fetes si touchantes 
auxquelles donna lieu Id-bas le telegrapbe sous-marin qui mariat les 
deux rivages, promettait le dialogue et la replique par minutes, 
de sorte que les deux mondes n'auraient plus qu'une pensee ! " 

The historical character of France and England explains 
the discrepancy so evident in theii- recorded estimate of and 
sentiments in regard to America. The former nation envied 
the Spaniards the renown of their peerless discovery, and 
blamed their king for not having entertaiaed the project of 
Colmnbus. As a people, they love power more than gain, 
and are ever more swayed by ideas than interest ; whereas, 
in the earliest chronicles of English polity, we find a spii'it 
of calculation. On that side of the Channel, we are told, 
12 



266 * AMEEICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

they " seldom voted a subsidy without bargaining for a 
right ; " and in a sketch of the wars between the two coun- 
tries, one of their own writers observes : " Our character at 
that time (1547) was more economical than heroic ; and we 
seldom set oui* foot in France, unless on the careful calcula- 
tion of how much the enemy would give us for going away 
again." 

This sharp appreciation of material results has had much 
to do with the civic prosperity of England, for thereby the 
popular mind has grown alert and efficient in securing those 
privileges in which consists the superiority of the English 
Constitution, and the absence of which enabled Philip Au- 
gustus, Richelieu, and Louis XIV. to establish in France such 
absolute despotism. On the other hand, so exclusive and 
pertinacious a tendency to self-interest is and has jjroved, in 
the case of England, a serious obstacle to those generous 
national sentiments which endear and elevate a people and a 
Government in the estimation of humanity ; and it is only 
necessary to recall the caricatures of the French, the Dutch, 
the German, and Italian character, which pei'vade English 
literature, to realize the force of insular prejudice and self- 
concentration thus confirmed by national habits and polity. 

" Some years ago," says a popular English writer, " it 
would have been an unexampled stretch of liberality to have 
confessed that France had any good qualities at all. Our 
country was an island — we despised the rest of the world ; 
our county was an island — we despised the other shires ; our 
parish was an island, with peculiar habits, modes, and insti- 
tutions ; our households were islands ; and, to complete the 
whole, each stubborn, broad-shoiddered, strong-backed Eng- 
lishman was an island by himself, surrounded by a misty and 
tumultuous sea of prejudices." * 

A curious illustration is afforded by the entire series of 

English Travels in America, of this national egotism so 

characteristic of England, which regards foreign countries 

and people exclusively through the narrow medium of self- 

* Rev. James White. 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEEICA. 267 

love. The tone of these records of a sojourn or an explora- 
tion in America is graduated, almost invariably, as to the 
sympathy or the depreciation, by the relation of the two 
countries to each other at different times. For a long period 
after the early colonization, so remote and unprofitable was 
the New "World, that indifference marks the allusions to, and 
superficiality or contempt the accoimts of, those thinly settled 
and improsperous communities. As they grew in population 
and resources, and glimpses were obtained of a possible 
future alike promising to the devotees of gain, of ambition, 
and of political reform and religious independence, English 
writers dwell with complacency upon the natural beauties 
and fertility of the land, upon the prospect here opened foi* 
enterprise ; and as a colonial tributary to their power and 
wealth, America, or that part of it colonized by the British, 
is described with pride and pleasure ; even its social traits 
occasionally lauded, and the details of observation and expe- 
rience given with elaborate relish. Esjjecially do we find 
political malcontents at home, and social aspirants or benign 
and intelligent visitors, dwelling upon the novel features and 
free scope of the country with satisfaction. Immediately 
subsequent to the Revolution, a different sj^irit is manifest. 
When the choicest jewel of her crown had been wrested 
from the grasp of Great Britain, numerous flaws therein be- 
came at once evident to the critical eyes of English travel- 
lers ; and, though occasionally a refreshing contrast is afforded 
by the candid and cordial estimate of a liberal writer, the 
disingenuous and deprecatory temper prevails. It is impos- 
sible not to perceive that the rapid growth and unique pros- 
perity of a country governed by poj^ular institutions, without 
an established church, a royal family, an order of nobility, 
and all the expensive arrangements incident to monarchical 
sway, however free and constitutional, has been and is a 
cause of uneasiness and hatred to a nation of kindred lan- 
guage and character. " Freedom," wrote Heine, " has sprung 
in England from privileges — from historical events. All Eng- 
land is congealed in mediaeval, never-to-be-rejuvenated institu- 



268 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

tions, behind which her aristocracy is intrenched, awaiting 
the death struggle." Hence the example of America has 
been to a large political party, to a proud social organiza- 
tion, inauspicious ; to the popular, the liberal, the democratic 
V masses, encouraging. Hence the base jubilee at our recent 
internal dissensions, whose root — slavery* — was planted by 
the English themselves. Hence their constant assertion that 
" the republic is a failure." 

One of the chief grounds of complaint stated, when the 
Declaration of Lidependence was first written, against the 
British Government, was that it had, contrary to the wishes 
of the colonies, planted African slavery on om- soil. Hence 
the extreme baseness of ignoring this primal and positive 
cause of our domestic troubles on the part of writers and 
rulers in England, and striving to make republican institu- 
tions responsible exclusively therefor — a course referable to 
shameful jealousy, and to the want of cotton and the desire 
_ for free trade. In all British history there is no more re- 
markable illustration of what De Tocqueville, whose English 
proclivities and philosophic candor no intelligent reader can 
question, remarked, in one of his letters : 

" In the eyes of aa Englishman, a cause is just if it be the inter- 
est of England that it should succeed. A man or a Government that 
is useful to England, has every kind of merit; and one tliat does 
England harm, every possible fault. The criterion of what is Tionor- 
aile, or just, is to he found in the degree of favor or of opposition to 
English interests. Tliere is much of this everywhere ; but there is 
so much of it in England that a foreigner is astonished." 

The mineral wealth and adaptation of mechanical pro- 
cesses to manufacture, which laid the foundation of Eng- 
land's commercial prosperity, are no longer a monopoly. 
Identical resources have been elsewhei-e developed and em- 
ployed, and her productions and enterprise have become, in 
the same proportion, less es^sential to the industry of the 

* It was the monopoly of the infamous traffic in negroes, which, during the 
ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, so greatly increased the mercantile prosperity 
of London, and founded that of Bristol and Liverpool. 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEKICA. 269 

world. Her power, therefore, in more than one direction, is 
on the wane. But to a liberal and philosophic mind, the 
grand natural provision for the subsistence of her impover- 
ished laborers, and the permanent amelioration of their 
status, on this continent, should be regarded as a vast bless- 
ing, not a selfish vexation ; as a cause of religious gratitude, 
and not of jealous detraction. Will it not prove a sugges- 
tive anomaly to the rational historian of the wonderful age 
in which we live, when science, letters, adventure, economy, 
education, and travel are making human beings every day 
legs local and egotistic, and more cosmopolitan and humane, 
in their relations and sentiments — that in such an age, when, 
for the privilege of holding black people in servitude imchal- 
lenged, a class of American citizens rose in arms against 
national authority, the nobles of England, and a portion of 
her traders and manufacturers, became the allies of the insur- 
gents ; while the royal family, the starving thousands of Lan- 
cashire — who are the real suiferers from the Avar — and the 
bravest and wisest representatives of the people in Parlia- 
ment, gave to the United States, and to the cause of justice 
aud of freedom, their sympathy, advocacy, and respect ? 
The real fear of America in Great Britain is of our moral 
influence, which, of course and inevitably, is democratic ; and 
if her detractors in England are pensioned, the working 
class there spontaneously, through foith and hope, attach 
themselves to her cause. 

The superior candor of the French writers on America is 
obvious to the most superficial I'eader. The urbanity and the 
philosophical tendency of the national mind account for this 
more genial and intelligent treatment ; but the striking diflfer- 
ence of temper and of scope between the French and English 
Travels in America, is accoimted for mainly by the compara- 
tive freedom from political and social prejudice on the part 
of the former, and the frequent correspondence of their sen- 
timents with those of the inhabitants of the New World. 
From the descriptions of primeval nature by the early Jesuit 
missionaries to the gallant gossip and sj^eculative enthusiasm 



270 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

of the French officers who cooperated in our Revolutionary 
struggle, a peculiar sympathy with tl]^ prospects and affinity 
with the conditions of nature and of life, on this continent, 
inspire the Gallic ^vrnters. Nor did this partiality or sense 
of justice diminish with the growth of the country. From 
the swarm of dilettante critics and arrogant or shallow au- 
thors of books on the United States, during the last fifty 
years, the only philosophical work wherein the principles of 
democratic institutions are fau-ly discussed, and their pecuhar 
operation in America justly defined, is the standard treatise 
of Alexis de Tocqueville ; while the first able and eloquent 
plea for our nationality, the first clear and honest recognition 
of the causes and significance of our present civil war from 
abroad, came from a French publicist. What a contrast be- 
tween the considerate argument and noble vindication of De 
Gasparin, and the perverse dogmatism, disingenuous tone, 
and malicious exaggeration of a large part of the English 
periodical press ! " We are not just toward the United 
States," says the former. " Their civilization, so different 
from ours, wounds us in various ways, and we turn from 
them in the ill humor excited by their real defects, without 
taking note enough of their eminent quahties. This country, 
which possesses neither church nor state, nor any government- 
al protection ; this country, born yesterday — born xmder a 
Puritan influence ; this country, without past history, with- 
out monuments, separated from the middle ages by the 
double interval of centuries and beliefs ; this rude coimtry 
of farmers and pioneers, has nothing fitted to please us. It 
has the exuberant life and the eccentricities of youth ; that 
is, it affords to our mature experience inexhaustible subjects 
of blame and raillery," 

" This frank statement explains while it does not excuse 
the long tirades of English Avriters against the crudities of 
our national life : not because these were not often truly re- 
ported, but because the other side of the story was omitted. 
Our sensitive pride of country took offence, and thus gave 
new provocation to the "blame and raillery" of which De 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AilEEICA. 271 

Gasparin speaks. No American familiar with Europe can 
wonder that refined visitors from the Old World to the New 
should find the gregarious habits, the unventilated and promis- 
cuously crowded railway cars, the fragile high-pressure steam- 
boats of the Western rivers, the culsme, the flashiness, the con- 
ceit, the hardihood, the radicalism, the costimie, the architecture, 
the social standards, the money worship, and the countless 
incongruities, especially on the outskirts of the older settle- 
ments, distasteful, and often revolting ; but it requires no 
remarkable powers of reflection to understand, and no extra- 
ordinary candor to admit, that many of these repugnant and 
discordant facts are incidental to great and benign innova- 
tions and improvements upon the hopeless social routine and 
organization of Europe ; that they coexist with vast human 
privileges ; that they are compensated for by new and grand 
opportunities for the mass of humanity, however much they 
may trench upon the comfort and sense of decency of those 
accustomed to exclusive privileges and luxury. It is pre- 
cisely because, as a general rule, the French writers recog- 
nize, while so many of the English ignore such palliations 
and compensations, in judgmg of and reporting life in Amer- 
ica, that the former, as a whole, are so much more worthy of 
respect and gratitude. Any shallow vagabond can compare 
disadvantageously the huge and hot caravansaries of West- 
ern travel with the first-class carriages of an English railway ; 
the bad whiskey and tough steaks of a tavern in America 
with the quiet country inn and the matchless sirloin and ale 
of old England. The social contrasts are easily made ; the 
defects of manners patent ; but when it is considered that 
what is applied by way of privilege or superiority to a class 
in Europe, is open — in a less perfect way, indeed, but still 
open — to all ; that the average comfort and culture here are 
imequalled in history ; and, above all, that the prospect and 
the principle of civil and social life are established on an equal 
and prosperous basis — the supei-ficial defects, to the eye of 
wisdom and the heart of benevolence, sink into comparative 
insignificance. " America," writes De Tocqueville, " is the 



272 AMEKICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

place of all others where the Christian religion has preserved 
the most power over souls." 

Other reasons for the difference of English and French 
interpretation of American questions are well stated by a 
recent writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes : 

" Frenchmen and Englishmen cannot be impressed alike by what 
is passing in the United States. At the bottom of the quarrel there 
is, it is true, the abolition of slavery, to which the English are de- 
voted by a glorious beginning ; but, on the other hand, what relates 
to the United States, awakens in England memories, interests, an- 
tipathies, which can have no parallel in the politics or feelings of 
France. In the first place, the Star-spangled Banner Qe drapeau 
seme d'etoiles) is the only flag that France has never met in the coali- 
tion of her enemies. To the Enghsh, the United States are always 
the rebellious colony of the past ; to us, they are a nation whose 
independence we contributed to establish by common victories car- 
ried in the teeth of Britisli obstinacy. For British politics, in spite 
of the accidental importance of cotton, it would be a satisfaction to 
see the American Union enfeebled by a division. For French poli- 
tics, the breaking up of the American republic, which would destroy 
the balance of maritime power, would be a serious misfortune. The 
English cherish the disdain of an aristocratic race for the republican 
Yankee ; democratic France ( ! ) has been enabled to take lessons 
from American democracy, and has more than once made itself en- 
vied by the latter. The two young volunteers who have just en- 
rolled themselves in the army of the North have thus remained 
faithful, in their choice of the cause which they would serve, to the 
traditions of their country." 

How uncandid English writers are, even when quoting 
respectable authorities, is evinced in the remark of a late 
quarterly reviewer, in alluding to De Tocqueville's hopeful 
views of democracy in America in contrast with the South- 
em Rebellion : " If he had lived a little longer, what an ex- 
ample of the fallacy of man's profoundest thoughts and 
acutest inference would he himself have moiu'nfully acknowl- 
edged, in the unnatural and incredible convulsion of the 
United States of America ; " whereas, so far from being un- 
natural and incredible, the whole argument of De Tocqueville 
is prophetic thereof. He knew the incubus of slavery — the 
anomaly of locaJ despotism in the heart of a republic — must 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMEKICA. 273 

be thrown off, as a loathsome disease in the body politic : 
how and Avhen, he did not pretend to say ; but still pro- 
claimed his faith in the strength of the Constitution — the 
vital power of political justice embodied in a democratic 
Government, and a vast, industrious, educated, and religious 
nation — to triumph over this accidental poison, which had 
been allowed to taint the blood but not blast the heart of 
the republic. Moreover, this same scientifically humane 
writer beheld, in the triumph of the democratic principle, the 
progress of the race and the will of God ; but he inferred 
not therefrom any roseate dreams of human perfection or 
individual felicity. On the contrary, as the responsibility of 
governing, and the privileges of citizenship expanded and be- 
came confirmed, he saw new claims upon the serious elements 
of life and character ; the need of greater sacrifices on the 
part of the individual ; a necessity for effort and disciphne 
calculated to solemnize rather than elate. It is one of the 
most obvious of compensatory facts, that, as we are more 
free to think and to work, we are less able to enjoy, as that 
word is commonly understood. Where occupation is essen- 
tial to respectability, and public spirit a recognized duty, 
pleasure has but infrequent carnival, and duty perpetual vigil. 
With all his elasticity of temperament, the self-dependence 
and the exciting scope of the life of an American tax the 
powers of body and mind as much as they inspire. 

Geographical ignorance, and errors in natural history, in- 
excusable now that so many authentic accounts of the coun- 
try are accessible to all, continue to be manifest even in the 
higher departments of English literature. Goldsmith's melan- 
choly exaggeration of the unhealthy shores of Georgia, in his 
apostrophe to the peasantry, finds a parallel in the tropical 
flowers Campbell ascribes to the valley of Wyoming ; while 
the last Cambridge prize poem places Labrador in the United 
States, and confuses the locality of American rivers with 
more than poetic license. Philosophical keep pace with geo- 
graphical errors. Despite the evidence of common sense and 
patent facts, the English press insisted that Mississippi repu- 
12* 



274: AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

diation of State debts was a direct and legitimate result of 
republican institutions. It now ascribes the slaveholders' 
rebellion to the same cause ; and a religious review of high 
standing recently attributed the high-flown and exaggerated 
style of Parke Custis, in his " Recollections of Washington," 
to the imdisciplined American method of expression. 

Ignorance of the social life incident to repxiblican institu- 
tions betrays itself continually in an indirect manner. In a 
work recently published in London, called the " Book Hunter," 
the writer observes of a work on American private libraries : 
" The statement that there is in Dr. Francis's library a com- 
plete set of the ' Receuil des Causes Celebres,' &c., would 
throw any of our book knight-errants in convulsions of laugh- 
ter ; " and elsewhere, speaking of thus publishing the cata- 
logue of private libraries, he says : " That the privacy of our 
ordinary wealthy and middle classes should be^invaded in a 
similar shape, is an idea that would not get abroad without 
creating sensations of the most lively horror. They manage 
these things differently across the Atlantic ; and so here we 
have over fifty gentlemen's jDrivate collections ransacked and 
anatomized. If they like it, we have no reason to complain, 
but rather have occasion to rejoice in the valuable and inter- 
esting result." How little this writer seems to understand 
that the facts which excite his wonder and disgust are legiti- 
mate results of democratic society, wherein we are accus- 
tomed to forego private for public good, and to liberally 
exchange intellectual privileges ! Monopolies are forced to 
yield to the pressure of humane exigencies. It is made 
known that a benevolent physician has a copy of the " Causes 
Celebres," not because the work is rare, but that some poor 
scholar may know where he can refer to it ; for in America 
we are bred to the recognition of mutual aid in culture as in 
economy, and, like Sir Thomas Brown, " study for those who 
will not study for themselves." It may be said of many 
English critics, as was said of a recent traveller in America, 
that, " living as he had so long in an atmosphere of country 
houses and parsonages, he is constantly exclaiming against 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 275 

the absence of those complicated rules of social intercourse 
which have so long engaged his attention." 

" When will the English learn how to write correctly 
about this country ? " asks a recent writer. " A very 
friendly press, the Daily JVews^ revicAving Hawthorne's 
book, says, very compassionately, that our ' national life has 
been too short ' for the formation ' of a homogeneous charac- 
ter ' among our people. We should like to know what homo- 
geneity there is among tlie British people, though a thousand 
years old, composed of Welshmen who cannot speak English, 
of Ii'ishmen always in revolt and forever at enmity with their 
rulers, of Scotchmen who are distinct in dialect, manners, 
and customs, and even now are not too fond of the Sasse- 
nachs ? How much of this is there in the English counties 
of Yorkshire, Kent, Cornwall ? The truth is, there is far 
more homogeneity in the United States, notwithstanding its 
short national life, than there ever has been in Great Britain, 
from the time of the heptarchy down." 

Much ridicule has been wasted upon our national sensi- 
tiveness to criticism ; and the hardihood and self-love of 
English writers and talkers often repel, as weak and irra- 
tional, the expectation of sympathy which finds utterance in 
every unfortunate crisis on this side of the water. Yet even 
John Bull winced at" Hawthorne's choicely worded and 
thoughtfully insinuated hits at his tendency to obesity and 
stagnation. Without defending that natural and honorable 
instinct that cherishes the tie of a common language and 
literature, historical, social, and domestic associations with a 
distant people, in the present age and among enlightened 
nations, it is certainly justifiable to demand scientific obsei*- 
vation in all those deliberate estimates of a country or a race, 
a government or a cause, wherein mutual and permanent 
interests are concerned. One chief cause of protest and com- 
plaint against British commentators on America, is their 
ignorance of facts whereof but slight investigation would 
requisitely inform them, and their wilful repudiation of the 
inferences thence I'esulting. It is a significant truth, that 



276 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. 

throughout the vast discussion by newspapers, reviews, maga- 
zines, i^amphlets, club and dinner talk, lectures and parlia- 
mentary speeches, which the Southern Rebellion and its con- 
sequences in the United States, have induced in Great Britain, 
scarcely any evidence appears of cognizance and appreciation 
as regards the simple geographical facts of the case ; without 
a knowledge of which it is impossible to perceive the scope 
or judge the merits of this question. Long ago Humboldt 
and other naturalists recognized in the fact that this conti- 
nent is placed between two oceans, the provision and pledge 
of a grand destiny ; long ago economists found, in the re- 
markable number, size, and relative situation of its lakes and 
rivers, the means established by nature to bring together and 
render mutually dependent and helpful the most widely sepa- 
rated regions ; long ago philanthropists hailed in the variety 
of climate and the liberal political institutions, a vast asylum 
and arena predestined to shelter and succor the independent 
but proscribed, and the impoverished and hopeless victims of 
over-populated and down-trodden Europe. Yet, when these 
institutions and this prosperous nationality were threatened 
by a minority in the interest of African slavery, and the civil 
war inevitably consequent thereon, challenged the sympathy 
of the world, in order to give a plausible excuse for their 
advocacy of our disunion, the writers and speakers of Eng- 
land, wit?i very rare excejitions, assumed that a geographical 
line isolated the two communities, by kinds of labor, forms 
of society, political and personal interests so in conflict, that a 
peaceable separation was not only practicable, but wise, hu- 
mane, and requisite. Had these malign and specious advocates 
merely ignored the fact that our power and prosperity have 
been the offspring of our union, it might have been tolerated 
in silence ; but when they refused to acknowledge that this im- 
mense country * known as the United States of North Amer- 

* Its greatest length is from Cape Cod to the Pacific, near lat. 42°, 2,600 
miles; in breadth from Maine to Florida, 1,600 m. ; there are 3,303 m. of 
frontier toward British America, and 1,456 of that toward Mexico ; on the 
ocean the boundary line, including indentations, is 12,609 m. ; the total area 
of the States and Territories in 1853 was 2,963,606 square miles. 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 27 Y 

ica is intersected by a mountain range inhabited by a people 
absolutely one in attachment to their Government and devotion 
to free labor, and that the slave interest borders upon, inter- 
sects, and isolates rather than divides this homogeneous and 
patriotic race, so that, to break up the political unity of the 
country is to expose these citizens to the despotic cruelty of 
rebels — to abandon the highest duty of a state and the noblest 
principle of human government, we cannot but feel that ig- 
norance degrades or sophistry impugns the honest humanity 
of these ostensible interpreters of public opinion in Britain. 
To illustrate the practical bearing of geographical facts in 
this instance, note the language of an intelligent native * of 
one of the border States, a kinsman of one of the unprin- 
cipled politicians who fomented, when in office under the Gov- 
ernment he betrayed, this wicked rebellion : 

" "Whoever will look at a map of tbe United States, will observe 
that Louisiana lies on both sides of the Mississippi Kiver, and that 
the States of Arkansas and Mississippi lie on the right and left banks 
of this great stream — eight hundred miles of whose lower course are 
thus controlled by these three States, unitedly inhabited by hardly as 
many white people as inhabit the city of New York. Observe, then, 
the country drained by this river, and its affluents, commencing with 
Missouri on its west bank, and Kentucky on its east bank. There 
are nine or ten powerful States, large portions of three or four oth- 
ers, several large Territories — in all a country as large as all Europe, 
as fine as any under the sun, already holding many more people than 
all the revolted States, and destined to be one of the most populous 
and powerful regions of the earth. Does any one suppose that these 
powerful States, this great and energetic population, will ever make 
a peace that shall put the lower course of this single and mighty na- 
tional outlet to the sea in the hands of a foreign Government far 
weaker than themselves ? If there is any such person, he knows 
little of the past history of mankind ; and will, perhaps, excuse us 
for reminding him that the people of Kentucky, before they were 
constituted a State, gave formal notice to the Federal Government, 
when General Washington was President, that if the United States 
did not acquire Louisiana, they would themselves conquer it. The 
mouths of the Mississippi belong, by the gift of God, to the inhab- 
itants of its great valley. Nothing but irresistible force can disin* 
herit them. 

* Dr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky. 



278 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. 

" Try another territorial aspect of the case. There is a bed of moun- 
tains abutting on the left bank of the Oliio, which covers all Western 
Virginia and all Eastern Kentucky to the width, from east to west, in 
those two States, of three or four hundred miles. These mountains, 
stretching southwestwartlly, pass entirely through Tennessee, cover the 
back parts of North Carolina and Georgia, heavily invade the north- 
ern part of Alabama, and make a figure even in the back parts of 
South Carolina and the eastern parts of Mississippi ; having a course 
of perhaps seven or eight hundred miles, and running far south of 
the northern limit of profitable cotton culture. It is a region of 
eighty thousand square miles, trenching upon eight or nine Slave 
States, though destitute of slaves itself — trenching upon at least five 
Cotton States, though raising no cotton itself. The western part of 
Maryland and two thirds of Pennsylvania are embraced in the north- 
eastern continuation of this remarkable region. Can anything that 
passes under the name of statesmanship be more preposterous, than 
the notion of permanent peace on this continent, founded on the 
abnegation of a common and paramount Government, and the idea 
of the supercilious domination of the cotton interest and the slave 
trade, over such a mountain empire, so located, and so peopled ? " 

When, in the calm and kindliness of meditation, we re- 
member the solemn assemblies of wise and intrepid English 
men and women who, two centuries and more ago, left their 
native shore with tears and prayers, only " comforted to live " 
by the thought that they took with them a great principle 
and a cherished faith to transplant and bequeath in another 
hemisphere ; when we recall the proud and fond associations 
with which their descendants sought and yet seek the ances- 
tral homes and graves of these brave and holy exiles ; and 
how tenderly the traditions, the literature, the laws, and the 
liberties of the Old World have been cherished by the en- 
lightened and earnest natives of the New ; how the kings of 
thought and the heralds of freedom regarded the Anglo- 
Saxon settlements in America, when persecution and strife 
made England to many a perilous sojourn ; how eagerly John 
Milton questioned Roger Williams ; how ardently Berkeley 
appealed to Walpole ; what Vane and Penn, Calvert, Win- 
throp, Puritan, Churchman, Quaker, Catholic, Huguenot, 
thought, felt, wrote, and did to colonize what to all of them 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 279 

was a land of promise ; and how, during the long lapse of 
time, the civilization that originated when the world had 
reached a period of glorious development, has ever responded 
to and often quickened that of older date hut identical 
character, like the " child of Earth's old age " as she is — it 
seems incredible that disdain and indifference, especially in a 
crisis of national life, should mark and mar nearly all public 
expression in England regarding a country thus morally 
assimilated and historically identified with her. Not strange, 
indeed, that traders and shallow egotists should ignore or 
sneer at a nation of kindred language and memories ; but 
strange that legislators and writers, who profess to instruct, 
should prove their want of interest by gross ignorance, liis- 
torical and geographical. How perversely blind have they 
shown themselves to the facts that the experiment of State 
sovereignty has been fully tried during the perilous interval 
between the acknowledgment of our independence and the 
adoption of the Constitution, whereby industry was par- 
alyzed, fiscal and social confidence lost, and advantage taken 
of the weakness of the isolated fragments of a nation by 
foreign powers ; that federal union, from all this chaos and 
imbecility, created and confirmed a nation whose growth, 
freedom, and self-reliant resources are imparalleled ; that so 
essential, by the laws of nature, is one section to the pros- 
perity of the other, that the chief motive and absolute con- 
dition whereby the new Southwestern States indissolubly 
linked their destiny and allegiance to the old thirteen, were 
that the free navigation of the Mississippi should be perma- 
nently guaranteed — that noble stream, like a main artery, 
vitally connecting the heart with the extremities of the body 
politic ; that what the practical effect is of a faction, how- 
ever large, undertaking illegitimate opposition to a Govern- 
ment based upon popular wiU, was memorably illustrated by 
Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts in 1785-86 ; by the career 
of Citizen Genet in '93 — his wild and anomalous partisan 
success, and his ignominious practical failure ; by the Vir- 
ginia Resolutions of '85 and '80, by the base and futile con- 



280 AMERICA AlTD HEE COMMENTATOES. 

si^iracy of Burr, and the prompt overthrow of Calhoun's 
sophistical theories. Equally blind to the present as the past, 
the fraud and coercion whereby the present Rebellion was 
initiated, the inhiunan cause for which it was undertaken, the 
despotic violence resorted to for its maintenance, the latent 
barbarism made patent by its career, were all, from base pol- 
icy or selfish malice, studiously kept out of view by these 
ostensible interpreters of public opinion. It is, indeed, one 
of those singular exhibitions of the blindness induced by self- 
love, that vituperation should mark the press of England in 
discussing American institutions, when often, in the identical 
sheet, glares the evidence of her own inadequacy in pro- 
viding for the masses. It is a striking coincidence, that, 
when an American banker * in London desired to indicate his 
interest in and gratitude to the country where he had ac- 
quired a colossal fortune, the best method his sagacious obser- 
vation could discover, was to provide homes for the working 
classes, whose physical degeneracy is thus noted in a recent 
issue of the most widely circulated and implicitly trusted 
organ of British opinion : 

" "We have only to take a walk through any of our populous quar- 
ters — Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, the Borough, Lambeth, all the 
river side, Clerkenwell, Gray's Inn Lane, and those numerous smaller 
districts of which the working classes, for one reason or another, 

* " When Mr. Peabody, the celebrated American banker, who is about to 
quit this country, first heard of the national memorial of the late Prince Con- 
sort, he authorized Sir Emerson Tennent to state that, should that memorial 
be a charitable institution, he would give £100,000 toward it ; and his dis- 
appointment was great on learning that the money would not be expended in 
that way. However Mr. Peabody, still resolved on carrying out his charitable 
scheme — as a token, he says, of gratitude to the English nation, for the many 
kind acts he has received from them, and also in memory of his long and 
prosperous career in this country — has decided on erecting a number of houses 
for the working class, who, through the inntimerable improvements in the 
metropolis, have been rendered almost homeless. For this purpose he gives 
£100,000, and also undertakes to pay the first year's interest of the money — 
£5,000. Sir Emerson Tennent is appointed one of three trustees ; Lord Stan- 
ley, M. P., it is hoped, will be the second ; the third has not yet been nomi- 
nated." — London Paper. 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 281 

have obtained inalienable possession ; take tbem at the hours when 
they show — going to their work or returning from it, or making 
their purchases, or cooling themselves in the open air : look at them, 
and please remember, that when you have deducted half a million 
people rather better off, there remain two millions of the sort you 
see before you." 

It would prove, indeed, a more ungracious than difficult 
task to enumerate social anomalies and characteristic defects, 
quite adequate to counterbalance, in English civilization, those 
so constantly proclaimed as American. Deans and poachers, 
snobs and weavers, sempstresses and governesses, convicts, 
pretended lunatics, might figure as unchristian monopolists or 
pitiable victims ; and poor laws, costly and useless govern- 
mental arrangements, the ravages of gin and beer, the press- 
ure of taxation, the inhumanity of rank and fashion, the 
cold egotism of the social code, the material routine of life, 
the absurd conventionalities, the servility of one class and 
the arrogance of another, the law of primogeniture, ecclesi- 
astical abuses, the hopeless degradation of labor, and numer- 
ous kindred facts and figures in the economical and social sta- 
tistics of the British realm, not only oflTer ample range for 
relentless and plausible defamation, akin to that which has 
been so bitterly indulged by English writers on America ; 
but the indictment would be confirmed by the testimony of 
popular and current English literature — Crabbe, Hood, Dick- 
ens, Mrs. Gaskell, Reade, and Thackeray having elaborated 
from patent social wrongs their most vivid pictures of human 
sufiering and degradation. 

Nor, were the test applied to specific traits, Avould the 
comparison be less disadvantageous. The vulgarity and bru- 
tality of an Englishman, when he is vulgar and brutal, are 
unparalleled. The stolidity of their lower class is more re- 
volting than the inquisitiveness of ours. The history of 
England's criminal code, of her literary criticism, of her 
artists and authors, of her colonial rule, of her aristocratic 
privileges, of her army, naval, and merchant service, has fur- 
nished some of the darkest pictures of cruelty, neglect, self- 



282 AMEEICA AJSTD HER COMMENTATORS. 

ishness, and abuse of power to be found in the annals of the 
world. 

The favorite subject of Punch — the trials of an " un- 
protected female " — betrays a national trait in brutal contrast 
with the habits and sentiments of the kindred people whose 
" domestic manners " have so long been the subject of their 
sneers. " Not a day passes," remarks an English lady of 
intelligence and character, but without rank or wealth, in 
writing to an American friend, " but I regret that paradise 
of my sex — your comitry. There my womanhood alone was 
my safeguard and distinction." 

Centuries ago, the very " land question " which led to the 
recent controversy whereby the Times Avas unmasked, offered 
the same ominous problem to humane and liberal English- 
men, and was, to not a few, the motive of emigration to 
America. 

" This land growes weary of her inhabitants," writes 
"Winthrop, " soe as man, whoe is the most pretious of all crear 
tui'es, is here more vile and base than the earth we treade 
upon. All townes complaine of the burthen of theire poore, 
and we use the authoritie of the Law to hinder the increase 
of o'" people by urginge the statute against colleges and in- 
mates. The foimtaines of Learning and Religion are soe 
corrupt as (besides the insupportable charge of theire educa- 
tion) most children are perverted. Why, then, should we 
stand striving here for places of habitation, many men spend- 
ing as much labour and coste to recover or keepe sometimes 
an acre or twoe as would procure them many and as good or 
better in another Countrie." * 

Compare this ancient statement with one in a journal of 
this year : 

" In the main, landed property is still in the same condition in 
England to-day as it was immediately after the Norman conquest. 
The foreign invaders at that time divided the land among a small 
number of nobles and brigand captains with the point of the sword ; 

* " Reasons for the Intended Plantation in New England," by John 
Winthrop, 1629. Life of John Winthrop, by Eobert C. Winthrop. 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AISIEKICA. 283 

and in the Doomsday Book it was then laid down that their right to 
the possession of these lands was as high as heaven and as deep as 
hell, and that the hand of him should wither Avho would dare to 
touch it. In course of time a number of free proprietors crept in 
between the landholding aristocracy ; but subsequent parliamentary 
acts, known as the 'Enclosure Acts,' .restricted once more the num- 
ber of free proprietors by forcible expropriation. With the excep- 
tion of a few localities, England possesses no peasantry in the sense 
of France and of Southern and "Western Germany. There is only 
the aristocratic proprietor, the steward, or the farming tenant and 
the laborer. The condition of the laborer is worse than anywhere 
in Central or "Western Europe. The political power Biutish feudal- 
ism wields is immense. A statistical table shows that, with regard 
to the representation of the people in the so-called House of Com- 
mons, there are about thirty popular constituencies ; one hundred 
constituencies slightly influenced by personal or family control, and 
most of them by money ; two Mindred and forty constituencies almost 
wholly under such family and aristocratic influence ; and thirty con- 
stituencies which may be regarded as mere family property." 

"With such social and political evils — a portentous report 
whereof, in their actual results upon labor and life, may be 
found in the work of Mr. Kay,* lately published — emigra^tion 
to America has been and is a resource to Great Britain which 
should have engendered gratitude instead of growls. An 
acute French writer attributes to it no small degree of Eng- 
land's prosperity : 

" Let others denounce, if they will, as culpable want of foresight, 
the energetic multiplication of the English people, and felicitate 
France on being preserved from this misfortune by the demi-sterility 
of marriages ; but, for my part, fs^thful to the ancient morality and 
patriotism which regarded a numerous posterity as a blessing from 
God, I point out this exhaustion of vital sap as a symptom of malady 
and decline. I see the people who emigrate redouble effbrts to fill 
up voids, redouble virtues, savings, and labor to prepare departures 
and new establishments. Among a people who do not emigrate, I 
see wealth disbursed in the superfluities of vain luxury ; young men 
idle, without horizons, and without lofty ambition, consuming them- 

* " The Social Condition and Education of the People in England," by 
Joseph Kay, Esq., M. A., of Trinity College, Cambridge, Barrister-at-Law, 
and late Travelling Bachelor of the University of Cambridge, 12mo., New 
York, 1863. 



284 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

selves in frivolous pleasures and petty calculations ; and families 
alarmed at a fecundity which would impose on them modest and la- 
borious habits. Like stagnant waters, stagnant populations become 
corrupt. Moved by this spectacle, I should dread for the sedentary 
race an early degradation, if tliis inequality revealed a decree of 
Providence, instead of being a fault of man." * 

If from the graver interests we turn to the superficial 
traits of the English people, it requires little acumen to dis- 
cover materials for ridicule quite as patent and provocative 
of satire as the " domestic manners of the Americans " yield. 
a, Lejich and Doyle have long since stereotyped for the public, 
certain traits of physiognomy, costume, and manners, some- 
what monotonous, certainly, but quite as absurd and vulgar 
as any so-called American, characteristic and popularly recog- 
nized as such. The pronunciation, snobbishness, egotism, 
bad taste, stolidity, and arrogance of different classes are 
thus caricatured. Deference to wealth and rank, perverse 
adherence to obsolete and unjust as well as irrational systems, 
habits, and opinions, in England, are the staple themes of 
satirical novelists, eloquent liberals, and comic draughtsmen ; 
while the " English abroad " furnish a permanent subject of 
ridicule to their more vivacious neighbors, and figure habitu- 
ally in French farces and after-dinner anecdotes. But this 
mode of discussing national character is not less unworthy a 
philosopher than a Christian ; it is essentially one-sided, preju- 
diced, and inhuman. Yet it is worth while to suggest the 
recognized vulnerable points of English life, manners, and 
institutions, that it may be seeri how easily their reproach and 
ridicule of Americans can be retaliated. 

But we do not cite such national defects and misfortunes 
in the spirit of retaliation, but simply to indicate how imjust 
and uncharitable it is to regard a country or a people exclu- 
sively in the light of reproach and animadversion, and how 
imiversal is that law of compensation whereby good and evil 
in every land are balanced in the scale of Divine wisdom. It 

* " Histoire de I'Emigration au XIX* Si^cle, par M. Jules Duval," Paris, 

1863. 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 285 

is indeed a remarkable evidence of inconsistent and perverse 
feeling, that a course which no man of sense and common 
humanity would think of applying to an individual, is confi- 
dently adopted in the discussion of national character and 
destiny. That allowance which the mature in years instinct- 
ively make for the errors of youth — the compassion which 
tempers judgment in regard to the indigence, the ignorance, 
or the blind passions of the outcast or the criminal, is 
ignored when the faults or the calamities of a whole people 
are described. Yet such a fearful exposition of " London 
Labor and London Poor," which Mayhew has made familiar, 
should excite only emotions of shame and pity in the Chris- 
tian heart. But the hardihood that so long coldly admitted 
or wantonly sneered at the wrongs of Ireland and Italy, gives 
a bitter edge or a narrow comprehension to the class of Eng- 
lish writers on America we have, perhaps too patiently, dis- 
cussed. 

The simple truth is, that there is scarcely a vulnerable 
point in our system, social, political, or religious, but has 
its counterpart in the mother country. For every solecism 
in manners or inhuman inconsistency in practice, growing 
out of democratic radicalism on this side of the water, a 
corresponding defect or incongruity is obvious in the eccle- 
siastical or aristocratic monopolies and abuses on the other. 
For our well-fed African slaves, they have half-starved white 
operatives ; for the tyranny of demagogues here, there is the 
bloated rule of duke and bishop there ; for the degraded 
squatter life in regions of whiskey drinking and ague in 
America, thei'e is the not less sad fate of the miner and 
the poacher in the heart of civilized England ; and there is 
reason to believe that, if a philosophical collector of the data 
of suicides, railway catastrophes, and financial swindlers, were 
to be equally assiduous in the United States and Great Bri- 
tain, the figures, in the ratio of space, time, and population, 
would be nearly parallel. Even the philological blunders and 
absurdities over which cockney travellers here have been so 
merry, may be equalled in many a district of England ; and 



ov 



286 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

if the classic names applied to new towns on this continent 
savor of tasteless pedantry, a similar lack of a sense of the 
appropriate stares us in the face in the names of villas in the 
suburbs of London ; while the same repetition and conse- 
quent confusion of names of places occur in English shires as 
in our States, 

Language has been one of the most prolific sources of 
ridicule and animadversion ; especially those peculiarities of 
tone and speech supposed to belong exclusively to the East- 
ern States, and popularly designated as Yankeeisms. Yet it 
has been made obvious at last, that, instead of being indige- 
nous, these oddities of speech, with very few exceptions, 
were brought from England, and are still current in the locali- 
ties of their origin. In the preface to his " Dictionary of 
Americanisms," Mr. Bartlett tells us that, after having col- 
lected, he imposed upon himself the task of tracing to their 
source these exceptional words, phrases, and accents. " On 
comparing these familiar words," he writes, " with the pro- 
vincial and colloquial language of the northern counties of 
England, a most striking resemblance appeared, not only in 
the words commonly regarded as peculiar to New England, 
but in the dialectical pronunciation of certain words, and in 
the genei'al tone and accent. In fact, it may be said without 
exaggeration, that nine tenths of the colloquial peculiarities 
of New England are derived directly from Great Britain ; 
and they are now pi'ovincial in those parts from which the 
early colonists emigrated, or are to be found in the writings 
of well-accredited authors of the period when that emigra- 
tion took place." 

Neither has the long-standing reproach of a lack of liter- 
ary cultivation and achievement present significance. Syd- 
ney Smith's famous query in the Edinburgh Iieviett\ " Who 
reads an x\merican book ? " is as irrelevant and impertinent 
to-day as the other famous dictum of Jeffrey in regard to 
Wordsworth's poetry — " This Avill never do." In history, 
poetry, science, criticism, biography, political and ethical dis- 
cussions, the records of travels, of taste, and of romance, 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AJIERICA. 287 

universally recognized and standard exemplars, of American 
origin, now illustrate the genius and culture of the nation. 

Li thus referring the liberal and philosophical inquirer, 
who desires to comprehend the character, destinies, and his- 
tory of the United States, and thence infer the relation of 
and duty to them on the part of Europe, to the several de- 
partments of literature which bear the impress of the 
national mind, another form of prejudice and phase of injus- 
tice habitual with Britisl^ writers inevitably suggest them- 
selves. Fifty years ago, American literature Avas declared by 
them beneath contempt ; but as soon as leisure and encourage- 
ment stimulated the educated and the gifted natives of the soil 
to enter upon the career of authorship ; when the literary 
products of the country attained a degree of merit that 
could not be ignored, these same critics objected that Ameri- 
can literature Avas imoriginal — only a new instalment of Eng- 
lish ; that Irving reproduced the manner of the writers of 
Queen Anne's day ; that Cooper's novels were imitated from 
those of Scott ; that Brockden Brown plagiarized from God- 
win, Hoffman from Moore, Holmes from Sterne, Sprague 
from Pope ; and, in short, that, because Americans made use 
of good English, standard forms of verse, and familiar con- 
struction in narrative, they had no claim to a national litera- 
ture. It seems a waste of time and words to confute such 
puerile reasoning. If the number of English authors who have 
written popular books in any and all of the British colonies, 
should have their literary merits questioned on the gi'ound 
that these works, although composed and published in the 
vernacular, Avere not actually conceived and written in Lon- 
don, the absurd objectioii would be deemed too ridiculous to 
merit notice. .Not only the language, but the culture; not 
only the political traditions, but the standards of taste, the 
religious and social education, the literary associations, the 
whole mental resource and discipline of an educated Ameri- 
can, are analogous to or identical Avith those of England ; 
but, as a people, the statistics of the book trade and the 
facts of individual culture prove that the master minds of 



288 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOKS. 

British literature more directly and universally train and nur- 
ture the American than the English mind. Partly from that 
distance that lends enchantment, and partly from the vast 
number of readers produced by our system of popular edu- 
cation, Shakspeare and Milton, Bacon and Wordsworth, Byron 
and Scott have been and are more generally known, appre- 
ciated, and loved, and have entered more deeply into the 
average intellectual life, on this than on the other side of the 
Atlantic ; and the best thinkers, the most refined poets of 
Great Britain in our own day, find here a larger and more 
enthusiastic audience than they do at home. Accordingly, 
imtil the laws of mind are reversed, there is no reason to 
expect any different manifestation of literature, as far as 
form, style, and conventional rules are concerned, here than 
there. The subjects, the scenery, the characters, the opinions 
of our historians, poets, novelists, and essayists, are as diverse 
from those of British writers as the respective countries. 
Cooper's local coloring, his chief personages, the scope and 
flavor of his romances, are as unlike those of Scott as are the 
North American Indians from Highlanders, and Lake Onta- 
rio from Loch Leven. The details of Bryant's forest pic- 
tures are full of special traits of which there is not a trace in 
Thomson or Bm-ns. The author of "Caleb Williams" ac- 
knowledged his obligations to the author of " Weiland " and 
" Arthm- MervjTi." There are pages of the " Sketch Book " 
and " Bracebridge Hall " which Addison might have written, 
for their subjects are English life and scenes ; but when the 
same graceful pen expatiates, with rich humor, among the 
legends of the Hudson or Dutch dynasties in New York, 
describes the prairies or colonial times in Virginia, except in 
the words used, there is not the slightest resemblance in sub- 
ject, tone, impression, or feeling to the " Spectator." Why 
should Motley Avrite otherwise than Hallam, Prescott than 
Macaulay, Emerson than Carlyle, Channing than Arnold, 
Hawthorne than Kingsley, as regards the technical use of a 
language common to them all, and a culture identical in its 
normal elements ? All the indi\iduality to be looked for ia 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 289 

in the treatment of their several subjects, in the style inci- 
dent to their respective temperaments and characters, and in 
the literary genius with which they are severally endowed. 
Yet, if it were desirable to vindicate the American quality as 
a distinction of these and other approved authors, it would 
be an easy task to indicate a freedom and freshness, an inde- 
pendence and humanity, so characteristic as to prove singu- 
larly attractive to foreign readers, and to be recognized by 
high continental criticism as national. 

The mercenary spirit so continually ascribed to our civili- 
zation by English writers, long before was the habitual re- 
proach cast on their own by continental critics. Thrift is a 
Saxon trait, and the " nation of shopkeepers " cannot appro- 
priately thus make the love of or deference to money our 
exclusive or special weakness ; whereas the extreme and 
appalling diversity of condition in England, the juxtaposition 
of the duke and the drudge, the pampered bishoj) and the 
starving curate, the magnificent park and the malarious hovel, 
the luxurious peer and the squalid operative, bring into such 
melancholy relief the sharp and bitter inequalities of human 
lives and human creatures, that not all the latent and obvious 
resources, energy, self-reliance, and power which so beguiled 
the wonder and love of Emerson in the aspect of England 
and Englishmen in their prosperous phase, can reconcile that 
social atmosphere to the large, warm, sensitive heart of an 
imselfish, sympathetic. Christian man. Clubs and races, 
cathedrals and royal drawing rooms, the freshness of rural 
and the luxury of metropolitan life. Parliament and the 
Times — all the elements, routine, substantial bases and super- 
ficial aspects of England and the English, however adequate 
to the insular egotism, and however barricaded by j^rcjudice, 
pride, and indifierence, do not harmonize, to the clear, humane 
gaze of soulful eyes, with what underlies and overshadows 
this stereotyped programme and partial significance. We 
hear the " cry of the human " that rang so drearily in the ear 
of the noblest woman and poet of the age : 
13 



290 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

" I am listening here in Eome ; 

Over Alps a voice is sweeping : 
' England 's cruel ! Save iis some 

Of these victims in her keeping.' " 

'■ Let others shout, 

Other poets praise my laud here ; 
I am sadly setting out, 

Praying, ' God forgive her grandeur ! ' " 

Nor less authoritative is the same earnest and truth- 
inspii-ed voice, in its protest against the inhumanity that 
ignores or wilfully repudiates the claims of other nations : 

" I confess that I dream of the day when an English statesman 
shall arise with a heart too large for England, having courage, in the 
face of his countrymen, to assert of some suggestive policy, ' This is 
good for your trade ; this is necessary for your domination : but it 
will vex a people hard by; it will hurt a people farther off; it will 
profit nothing to the general humanity ; therefore away with it ! It 
is not for you or me.' When a British minister dares so to speak, 
and when a British public applauds him speaking, then shall the 
nation be so glorious, that her praise, instead of exploding from 
Avithin, from loud civic mouths, shall come to her from without, as all 
worthy praise must, from the alliances she has fostered, and from 
the populations she has saved." * 

Voltaire compared the English to beer — " the bottom 
dregs, the top froth, and the middle excellent." The first 
and last class, for a considerable period, alone reported us ; 
low abuse and superficial sneers being their legitimate expres- 
sion, and au inability to understand a people, sympathize with 
an imaccustomed life, or rise above selfish considerations, 
their normal defects ; whereof the last three years have 
given memorable proof. 

' Instead of the vague title of Annus Mirabilis Avhich 
Dryden bestowed upon a memorable year in English history, 
these might more appropriately be called, as far as our coun- 
try is concerned, the Test Years. Not only have they proved 
the patriotism, the resources, and the character of the people 

* Elizabeth Browning. 



ENGLISH ABUSE OF AMERICA. 291 

and their institutions, but they have applied specific tests, the 
result of which has been essentially to modify the convictions 
and sentiments of individuals. Any thinking man who will 
review his opinions, cannot fail to be astonished at the 
changes in his estimate of certain persons and things, which 
have taken place since the war for the Union began. Thou- '^ 
sands, for instance, who entertained a certain reverence for the 
leading British journal, simply as such, without any familiar- 
ity therewith, having become acquainted with the Times in 
consequence of its gratuitous discussion of our national 
afiairs, and percei^'ing its disingenuous, perverse, inhnical 
spirit toward their country in the hour of calamity ; and, of 
their own personal knowledge, proving its Avanton falsehoods, 
have been enlightened so fully, that henceforth the mechani- 
cal resources and intellectual appliances of that famous news- 
paper weigh as nothing against the infamy that attends a dis- 
covered quack.* 

In countless hearts and minds on this continent, pleasant 
and fond illusions in regard to English character, govern- 
ment, and sentiment are forever dis2>elled, first by the injus- 
tice of the official, and then by the uncandid and inimical 
tone of the literary organs of the British people. There lies 
before us, as we write, a private letter from an American 
scholar and gentleman, who, on the score of lineage as well 
as cultm-e and character, claims respect for his deliberate 
views. What he says in the frank confidence of private 
correspondence, indicates, without exaggeration, the change 
which has come over the noblest in the land : ' Let John Bull 
beware. War or no war, he has made an enduring enemy 
of us. I am startled to hear myself say this, but England is 
henceforth to me only historical — the home of our Shak- 

* Cobden thus characterizes the Times with reference to its treatment of 
a home question and native statesmen: "Here we have, in a compendious 
form, an exhibition of those qualities of mind which characterize the editorial 
management of the Times — of that arrogant self-complacency, that logical in- 
coherence, and that moral bewilderment which a too long career of impunity 
and irresponsibility could alone engender." 



292 AMERICA AND HEE C0MMENTAT0K8. 

speare, and Milton, and Wordsworth ; for all her best writers 
are ours by necessity and privilege of language : but farewell 
the especial sympathy I have felt in her political, social, and 
total well-being. With her present exhibition and promulga- 
tion of jealousy and selfishness and heartlessness and ungen- 
tlemanly meanness, she has cut me loose from the sweet and 
cordial and reverent ties that have kept her so long to me a 
second fatherland.' ' 



CHAPTER YIII. 

NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 

KALM ; MISS BREMER ; GUROWSKI, AND OTHERS ; GERMAN WRITERS : 
HUMBOLDT; SASE WEIMAR; VON RAUMER ; PRINCE MAXIMILIAN 
VON WEID ; LIEBER ; SCHXJLTZ ; OTHER GERMAN WRITERS : 
GRUND ; RtJPPIUS ; SEATSFIELD ; KOHL ; TALVI ; SCHAFF. 

Isr the North of Europe, since the beginning of the pres- 
ent century, French literature has been the chief medium of 
current information ia regard to the rest of the world. 
Within the last twenty years the English language has be- 
come a fashionable accomplishment ; and, with the wonderful 
development of German literature, books of science and 
travel, in that language, have furnished the other northern 
races with no small part of their ideas about America. In 
Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, many of our best authors 
have been translated ; and the Journal de St. Petershourg, 
Z/''Abeille du JVbrd, Vedemosti (JSedemocttt), during the civil 
war, have, by the accuracy of their facts and the justness of 
their reasoning, evidenced a remarkably clear understanding 
of the struggle, its origin, aim, and consequences. A pleas- 
ant book of " Impressions " during a tour 'in the United 
States, by Lakieren, a Russian, was published in that lan- 
guage in 1859; and a Swedish writer — Siljestroem* — gave 

* " The Educational Institutions of the United States, their Character and 
Organization," translated from the Swedish by Frederica Rowan, London, 



294: AlVIEEICA AITD HEK COMMENTATORS. 

to Ms countrymen an able descri^Jtion and exposition of the 
American system of popular education, which is justly 
esteemed for its fulness and accuracy ; while the great work 
of Rafn on " Northern Antiquities " identifies the profound 
researches of a Danish scholar with the dawn of American 
history. 

It is refreshing alike to the senses and the soul, to turn 
from the painfully exciting story of those early adventurers 
on this continent, whose object was conquest and personal 
aggrandizement, whose careers, though signalized often by 
heroism and sagacity, were fraught with bloodshed, not only 
in conflicts with the savages, but in quarrels among their own 
followers and rivals, to the- peaceful journeys and voyages — 
attended, indeed, with exposure and privation — of those who 
sought the woods and waters of the New World chiefly to 
discover their marvels and enjoy and record them. We find 
in all the desirable reports of explorers, whether men of 
war, diplomacy, or religion, more or less of that observa- 
tion, and sometimes of that love of nature, so instinctively 
active when a new scene of grandeur or beauty is revealed to 
human perception. But these casual indications of either a 
scientific or sympathetic interest in the physical resources of 
the country are but the episodes in expeditions, whose lead- 
ers were too hardy or unenlightened to follow these attrac- 
tions, for their own sake, with zeal and exclusiveness. Other 
and less innocent objects absorbed their minds ; and it is 
chiefly among the missionaries that we find any glowing 
recognition of the charms of the untracked wilderness, the 
mysterious streams, and the brilliant skies, Avhich they strove • 
to consecrate to humanity by erecting, amid and beneath them, 
the Cross, which should hallow the flag that proclaimed their 
acquisition to ^ distant but ambitious monarch. To the natu- 
ralist, America has ever abounded in peculiar interest ; and 

1853. Other Swedish works on America are C. D. Arf^vedson's "Travels," 
(1838); Gustaf Unonceis' " Recollections of a Residence of Seventeen Years 
m the United States" (1862-'3). Munck Rieder, a Norwegian, wrote a work ^/^ 
on his return from the United States in 1849 — chiefly statistical. 



NOETHEEN EUEOPEAN WEITERS. 295 

all with an inkling of that taste have found their loneliest 
wanderings cheered thereby. Nor has it been the scientific 
love of nature alone to which she has here ever appealed. 
To the adventurous and poetical, to the brave lover of inde- 
pendence and freedom, like Boone, and the enthusiast, like 
Chateaubriand, the forest and the waterfall have possessed a 
memorable charm. From Bartram to Wilson, and from Au- 
dubon to Agassiz, the world of animal and vegetable life in 
America has yielded a long array of naturalists the richest 
materials for exploration. 

One of the_ earliest scientific visitors to our shores was 
Peter Kalm, who was sent from Sweden, with the approba- 
tion of Linnaeus, in 1745. His salary was inadequate, and he 
so trenched upon his private resources, in order to carry out 
the objects of his journey, as to be compelled, after his re- 
turn home, to practise rigid economy. Kalm was born in 
Osterbotten, in 1715, and educated at Upsalj^, On his return 
from Amei'ica, he was appointed jn-ofessor of natural history 
at Abo, where he died in 1779. A charming memorial of his 
visit to our country is the botanical name given to the wild 
laurel of our woods, first made known by him to Europe, 
and, in honor thereof, called the Kalmia. His work, " En 
resa til Norra Amerika," appeared in Stockholm in 1753-'61, 
in three volumes, and was translated into Dutch, German, and 
English — the latter by John R. Foster, under the title of 
"Travels in North America" (2 vols., London, 1772).* 
He passed the winter of 1749 among the Swedes settled at 
Racoon, New Jersey. He explored tlie coast of New York, 
visited the Blue Mountains, the Mohawk, Iroquois, Oneida, 
Tuscarora, and Onondaga Indian tribes. Lake Ontario, and 
the Falls of Niagara. His description of the latter was long 
popular. In his diary, while at Philadelphia, he notes the 
variety of religious sects and their peculiarities, the exports, 
and the hygiene. Some of the facts recorded by him of the 

* " Travels in North America, containing its Natural History, and Civil, 
Ecclesiastical, and Commercial State," &c., by Peter Kalm, 3 vols. 8vo., best 
edition, map, plates Warrington, 17Y0. 



296 AMERICA AND HEB COMMENTATOES. 

City of Brotherly Love a century ago, enable ns to realize 
how rapid has been the advance from suburban wildness to 
the highest metropolitan luxury. When Kalm sojourned 
there, elks, beavers, and stags were hunted where now is 
"the sweet security of streets." So abundant were the 
peaches, that they served as the food of swine. The noisy 
midsummer chorus of frogs, locusts, and grasshoppers vibra- 
ted through what is now the heart of a great city. Maize 
was to the Swedish botanist the most wonderful staple of the 
soil. He discovered a species of Rhus indigenous to the 
region. The murmur of the spinning wheel was a familiar 
sound ; and sassafras was deemed a specific cure for dropsy. 

Kalm's picture of Albany in 1749 is an interesting paral- 
lel and contrast to Mrs. Grant's more elaborate description, 
and to the pleasant social glimpses of its modern life given 
by the late William Kent in a lecture before the young men 
there of this generation. The Swedish traveller tells us 
that all the people spoke Dutch, that the servants were all 
negroes, and that all the houses had gable ends to the street, 
with such projecting gutters that wayfarers were seriously 
incommoded in wet weather. He describes the cattle as 
roaming the dirty streets at will ; the interior of the dwell- 
ings as of an exemplary neatness, and the fireplaces and 
porches thereof of an amplitude commensurate with the 
wide and genial hospitality and liberal social instincts of the 
people, whose prevalent virtues he regarded as frugality in 
diet and integrity of purpose and character. In their houses 
the women were extremely neat. " They rise early," says 
Kalm, " go to sleep late, and are almost over nice and cleanly 
in regard to the floor, which is frequently scoured several 
times a week." Tea had been but recently introduced among 
them, but was extensively used ; coflTee seldom. They never 
put sugar and milk in their tea, but took a small piece of the 
former in their mouths while sipping the beverage. They 
usually breakfasted at seven, dined at twelve or one, and 
supped at six ; and most of them used sweet milk or butter- 
rnilk at every meal. They also used cheese at breakfast and 



NOETHEKN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 297 

dinner, grated instead of sliced ; and the usual drink of the 
majority of the people was small beer and pure Avater. The 
wealthier families, although not mdulging in the variety then 
seen upon tables in New York, used much fish, flesh, and 
fowl, preserves and pastry, nuts and fruits, and various wines, 
at their meals, especially when entertaining their friends or 
strangers. Their hospitahty toward deserving strangers was 
free and generous, without formality and rules of etiquette, 
and they never allowed their visitors to interfere with the 
necessary duties of the household, the counting room, or the 
farm. 

In describing his visit to Niagara Falls, in a letter dated 
Albany, September 2, 1750, Kalm furnishes us with an inter- 
esting contrast between the experience of a traveller to this 
long-frequented shrine of nature, a century ago, when such 
expeditions were few and far between, and the magnificent 
scene with its frontier fort Avas isolated in the wilderness, 
and the same visit now, Avhen caravans rush thither many 
times a day, with celerity, to find all the comforts, society, 
and amenities of high civilization : 

" I came, on the 12th of August, to Niagara Fort. The French 
there seemed much perplexed at my first coming, imagining I was an 
English officer, who, under pretext of seeing the Falls, came with 
some otlier view ; but as soon as I showed them my passport, they 
changed their behavior, and treated me with the greatest civility. 
In the months of September tind October, such immense quantities 
of dead waterfowl are found, every morning, below the fall, on the 
shore (swept there), that the garrison of the fort for a long time live 
chiefly upon them, and obtain such plenty of feathers in autumn as 
make several beds." 

The Swedish colony on the banks of the Delaware early 
associated that brave nationality with the settlement of 
America.* Longfellow's translation of Tegner's " Children 

* 1. " Description of Xcw Sweden in America, and the Settlements in 
Pennsylvania by Companies," Stockholm, 1792, a small quarto, with primitive 
engravings. 

2. " Description of the Province of Kew Sweden, now called by the English 
Pennsylvania," translated and edited by Peter S. Duponceau. Phila., 1824. 

3. " The Swedes on the Delaware," by Rev. Jehu Curtis Clay, Pliila. 

13* 



298 AMEBIC A AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

of the Lord's Supper," with the prefatory sketch of life iu 
Sweden, gave us a j)leasant glimpse of its primitive and rural 
traits ; and the vocalism and beneficence of Jenny Lind en- 
deared the very name of that far-ofl" land to American hearts. 
But the novels of Fredrika Bremer first made known in this 
country the domestic life of Sweden, which, delineated 
Avith such naivete and detail in " The Neighbors," charmed 
our households, and prepared them to give a cordial welcome 
to the author. The first impression she made, however, was 
not highly attractive. A journal of the day Avell describes 
it, and the natural reaction therefrom : 

" The slowness with which she spoke, and the pertinacity with 
which she insisted on understanding the most trifling remark made 
to her, a little dashed the enthusiasm of those who newly made her 
acquaintance. Further intercourse, however, brought out a quaint 
and quiet self-possession, a shrewd vein of playfulness, a quick obser- 
vation, and a truly charming simplicity, which rewon all the admi- 
ration she had lost, and added, we fancy, even to the ideal of expec- 
tation." 

There are few situations in modern life more suggestive 
of the ludicrous, than that of a woman " of a certain age," 
professedly visiting a country for the purpose of critically 
examining and reporting it and its jjeople. Every American 
of lively imagination Avho has been thrown into society with 
one of these female philosophers on such a voyage of discov- 
ery, must have caught ideas for a comedy of real life from 
the phenomena thus created. " Asking everybody every- 
thing," the self-ai")poiuted inspector is propitiated by one, 
quizzed by another, feared by this class and contemned by that, 
all the time with an imconscious air, looking, listening, noting 
down, and, from the most evanescent and unreliable data, 
" giving an opinion " or drawing a portrait, not of a Avell- 
known place or familiar person, but of an unknown country 
and a strange nation ! To see Miss Martineau vigilantly 
thridding crowds and paying out the flexible tube of her ear- 
trumpet, like a telegraph wire, into the social sea ; or Dick- 
ens astride a chair in a hotel, receiving gratuitous and exag- 



NORTHEKN EUKGPEAX WKITEKS. 299 

gerated reports of the state of the nation, fi'oni a group of 
lion-struck republicans, are tableaux that will recur to many, 
as illustrations of this comedy of travel in America. 

It was our lot to see Miss Bremer at a manorial domicile 
on the Hudson, in all the glory of her " mission." It was in 
the autumn, and no one could pass along the river without 
being struck with admiration at the splendid colors that 
kindled the woods : it was the common theme of remark. 
She, however, resented this assumed superiority of the 
American autumn, saying, " The Lord also has done some- 
thing for Sweden. Our foliage is brilliant in the fall." In 
the same spirit she refused to believe a lady fresh from Ken- 
tucky, who, in describing to her the Mammoth Cave, men- 
tioned the familiar fact that the fish therein have only the 
rudiment of an optic nerve. At dinner, her inquiries about 
the material and preparation of the viands would have led to 
the supposition that she meditated a man^^al of cookery ; and, 
on returning to the drawing room, she whipped out a sketch 
book, and coolly drew a likeness of Irving, the most illustri- 
ous of the guests. The fabrics of the ladies' dresses, the 
modes of dancing, the style of meals, the trees, furniture, 
books, schools, and private history of all persons of note, and 
even of those unknown to fame, were investigated witli per- 
fect good humor and nonchalance / but the process and idea 
of the thing, when considered, are a singular commentary 
upon modern life and social dignity ; and when the long- 
expected book appeared, the kind people who had enter- 
tained Miss Bremer, were dismayed to find their sayings and 
doings recorded, and their very looks and characters analyzed 
for the public edification. This breach of good faith and 
good taste, however, did not prevent her Swedish readers 
from learning, through her very frank and naive but often 
superficial report, many details of domestic economy, and 
some novelties of American life ; while here the effect was 
once more to "give us pause" in our hospitable instincts, and 
to feel the necessity of a new sumptuary law, whereby to eat 
one's salt should be a pledge against the freedom of pen-craft. 



300 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

Adam Gurowski's book on America is noteworthy as 
the observations of a Pole. It appeared in 1857, and has 
few elements of popularity, being alike devoid of statistics 
and gossip — the staple elements of favorite records of travel 
on this side of the water ; but it is honorably distinguished 
from these by a vein of grave speculation and historical rea- 
soning, of which the author's subsequent hasty, irate, and 
irrational comments on the war for the Union, give no indica- 
tion. Being a publicist and a well-read political philosopher, 
as well as a political refugee, the Count's experience as a 
Polish revolutionist, an employe of Russia, and a long resi- 
dent in America, fits him eminently to discuss the tendencies 
and traits of this country by the light of the past. He com- 
pares our civilization with that of Europe. The tone of his 
work is liberal and rational. He is a sincere and earnest 
admirer of om- institutions, a trenchant social critic. The 
pi;lpit, press, and " manifest destiny " of the nation are 
keenly analyzed, and slavery is discussed from an historical 
stand-point, and thoroughly condemned by practical argu- 
ment. As a treatise on government and society, the book 
contains an unusual amount of thought, and grasps salient 
questions with a comprehensive scope. It is, indeed, defec- 
tive in style, and contains palj^able errors of statement and 
inference ; but these are more than atoned for by its philo- 
sophical spirit. 

A highly educated Swiss, K. Meier, in a" pleasant work 
entitled " To the Sacramento," has described his journey 
from the Northern States to California via Panama, in the 
German language, with the interest which ever attaches to 
the tour of an intelligent votary of the natural sciences ; and 
an officer of the same nation. Colonel Lecomte, has published, 
in the French language, a report of our military operations 
during the first months of the war for the Union, which has 
been translated into Enghsh.* 

* " The War in the United States : a Keport to the Swiss Military De- 
partment ; preceded by a Discourse to the Federal Military Society, assembled 



' NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 301 

An accomplished member of the Belgian Representative 
Chamber wi'ote an able little treatise on " La Question Ame- 
ricaine," * in which he arrays facts and arguments in a lucid 
and forcible manner, and discusses, with rare fulness and per- 
spicacity, the causes and consequences of the civil war. His 
views of the mutual interests of his own and our country are 
worth citing : 

" It will not seem out of place to show here, briefly, that, as re- 
gards Belgium, tlie cotton question is not the only one which inter- 
ests her in the aftairs of America. "We have close constitutional 
analogies with the United States, If their institutions should fall, 
ours would suffer by reaction. We have copied the American Con- 
stitution, not only as to municipal and provincial decentralization, 
as to that of industrial, financial, charitable associations, &c., as to 
the great liberties of worship, of instruction, and of the press (of 
which the English charter ottered us equally the model) ; but we 
liave followed America particularly as regards the absence of a state 
religion, of which Catholic Maryland gave the first example. Wg 
have imitated her in the institution of an elective Senate, in that of 
a House of Representatives identified with the democratic interest. 
The national Congress voted the Belgian Constitution with their eyes 
fixed on the American Union. Were we to consult only the interest 
of Belgium, we ought to desire that the United States should con- 
tinue to remain what they have been, and to give us the example of 
union, of the spirit of liberty, and of decentralization — qualities 
which characterize the Anglo-Saxon race, with which the Belgians 
have bonds of relationship and close affinities." (P. 63.) 

No Europeans, in our own day, have had more reason to 
regard North America with hopeful interest than the Ger- 
mans. To their indigent agricultural population this country 
has proved a prosperous home ; and the zeal with which our 
Teutonic fellow citizens, of all classes, volunteered for the 
war on whose issues hang the liberties of this continent, is 
the best evidence of their appreciation of the privileges of 

at Berae, August 18th, 1862," by Ferdinand Lecomte, translated from the 
French by a StafiF Officer, New York, 1863. 

* " La Question Americaine dans ses Rapports avec les Moeurs, 1' Escla- 
vage, r Industrie et la Politique." Par Le Chanoine de Haeme, Membre de la 
Chambre des Representants, Bruxelles, 1862, 8vo., pp. 72. 



302 AISIEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

American citizenship. No foreigners seem to organize their 
national life among us with such facility. The guilds and 
pastimes of the fatherland are as familiar in our cities as on 
the Rhine. German scholars and thinkers are attached to 
our colleges, contribute to our literature, and enrich our soci- 
ety ; Avliile large sections of the Western States are culti- 
vated by German peasants. Moreover, the literature of Ger- 
many has essentially modified the culture of the present gen- 
eration of American scholars ; and thus, in the sphere of 
intellectual and of utilitarian life, a mutual understanding 
and sympathy, and a commimity of political interests, have 
tended to bring the two nationalities into nearer relations. 

Many statistical works on the United States have been 
published in Germany as guides to emigrants ; and many 
sensible treatises explaining and desci'ibing our institutions, 
manners, resources, and characteristics, like those of Von 
Raumer, Lieber, and other residents and visitors. A certain 
philosophical impartiality of tone makes the German record 
a kind of middle ground between the urbane and enthusiastic 
French and the prejudiced and sneering English writers. 
Some of the most just views and candid delineations have 
emanated from German writers. Their political sympathies, 
extensive information, and patient tone of mind, alike fit 
them for the task of investigating and reporting physical and 
social facts. The record may lack sprightliness, and be 
tinged with a curious vein of speculation, but is nevertheless 
likely to convey solid and valuable knowledge, and suggest 
comprehensive inferences. Gerstaecker, who travelled on 
foot over a large part of the Southwest, and Trochling, have 
given to many of their coimtrymen the first vivid impres- 
sions of America. Writing in the novelistic form, they 
reached the sym2:)athies of many who would neglect a merely 
statistical work. Private letters, and the current journals and 
translations of Cooper and Irving, are, however, the popular 
sources of specific information and romantic impressions in 
Germany in regard to the United States. Although Baron 
Humboldt's American researches were chiefly confined to the 



NOKTHERN EUROPEAN WEITERS. 303 

Southern continent, he was keenly alive to the human interest 
and civic problems of the United States. " We would sim- 
ply draw attention," he Avrites in " Cosmos," " to the fact 
that, since this period " (that of the discovery and coloniza- 
tion of America), " a new and more vigorous activity of the 
mind and feelings, animated by bold aspirations and hopes 
which can scarcely be frustrated, has gradually penetrated 
through all grades of civil society ; that the scanty popula- 
tion of one half of the globe, especially in the portions oppo- 
site to Europe, has favored the settlement of colonies, which 
have been convei'ted, by their extent and position, into inde- 
pendent States, enjoying imlimited power in the choice of 
their mode of free government ; and, finally, that religious 
reform — the precursor of great political revolutions — could 
not iliil to i^ass through the different phases of its develop- 
ment, in a jjortion of the earth which had become the asyliun 
of all forms of faith, and of the most different views regard- 
ing Divine things. The daring enterprise of the Genoese 
seaman is the first link in the immeasurable chain of these 
momentous events. Accident, and not fraud and dissension, 
deprived the contuaent of America of the name of Columbus. 
The New World, continuously brought nearer to Europe 
during the last half century by means of commercial inter- 
course and the improvement of navigation, has exercised an 
important influence on the jiolitical institutions, the ideas and 
feelings of those nations who occupy the eastern shores of 
the Atlantic, the boundaries of which appear to be constantly 
brought nearer and nearer to one another." 

There is a curious illustration of the first impressions of 
the highly educated Germans m America, in a phrase of 
Baron Furstenwarther, and its explanation by Mr. Schmidt : 
" With all the facility," writes the former, " particularly of 
the material life, there is no idea, not a distant suspicion, of 
a high and fine existence." " By material," observes the lat- 
ter, " we mean men who take more pleasure in a cattle show 
or a breed of swine, than a Venus de Medici or a Laocoon." 
Very patient and informing, but quite tame and didactic, are 



304 AMERICA AND HEE C0M3IENTAT0ES. 

the " Travels in North America " by His Highness, Bernhard, 
Duke of Saxe- Weimar-Eisenach, republished in Philadelphia 
in 1828. The kindliuess and intelligence of the Duke are 
apparent on every page of these two volumes ; but there is 
little new in the subjects or mode of treatment. It is a work 
which excites respect for the man more than admiration for 
the writer. His benevolent interest and his detailed account 
of what he sees and hears, are the most remarkable traits. 
He gives a favorable report of the hospitality of Americans ; 
describes his visit to the elder Adams, and a Virginia rail 
fence, a granite machine in New England, and a Hudson 
River steamboat or horse ferry, the Creek Indians, and 
Owen's commimity, with the same fulness and apparent inter- 
est. He criticizes West's painting of " Christ Healing the 
Sick" judiciously, bestows the epithet " dear" upon Philadel- 
phia, was astonished " to hear Virginians praise hereditary 
nobility and primogeniture," and greatly enjoyed a visit to 
the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, the Natural Bridge, 
and a dinner at Monticello. It is remarkable that the travel- 
lers of rank show so much more human and so much less con- 
ventional interest in American life, manners, and resources 
than those who belong to a class we should imagine especially 
alive to the opportunities and privileges of a new and free 
country. Yet the Cavalier Castiglione, the Marquis of Chas- 
tellux, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and Lord Morpeth are 
more just and generous in their observation and sympa- 
thies, as travellers in America, than a Hall, a Trollope, or a 
Dickens. 

Friedrich Von Raumer, more of an historian than an 
observer, a professor in the University of Berlin, and author 
of several political and historical treatises, after travelling in 
England and publishing his observations on that country, 
which were translated by Mrs. Austin (5 vols., London, 
1836), visited this country, and, in 1843, wrote a book there- 
on, entitled " America and the American people," subse- 
quently translated and published in New York.* It contains 

* " America and the American People," by Frederick Von Raumer, 



NOKTHEKN EUKOPEAN WKITEES. 305 

much valuable information, and is written with the love of 
knowledge and patient exposition thereof characteristic of a 
German professor, but evidently drawn much more from 
books than from life. 

The German edition of the " Travels " * in America of 
the Prince Maximilian von Wied, is superbly illustrated, and 
much used as an authentic reference by his countrymen, for 
whom the work was expressly written : it is wholly descrip- 
tive, and therefore contains little that is new to a well-in- 
formed native. The work was translated into English, and 
with its superb illustrations republished in London. One of 
the best known here of the German writers on this country is 
Dr. Francis Lieber. He was born at Berlin in 1800, and re- 
ceived a doctor's degree at the University of Jena. Like so 
many ardent and cultivated young Europeans, he esj^oused 
the cause of Greece during her Revolution ; became a politi- 
cal exile, received a letter of encouragement from Richter, 
wrote poems in prison, and, in 1827, came to America. He 
edited the Cyclo2:>cedia Americana, and was professor in Co- 
lumbia College, South Carolina, several years, and now holds 
a like situation in Columbia College, New York. Dr. Lieber 
is an eminent publicist. His views on political economy are 
original and profoimd. His expositions of international law, 
and his occasional political essays, are alike remarkable for 
extensive knowledge and acute reasoning. His " Letters to 
a Gentleman in Germany," or " The Stranger in America," f 
exhibit his ability in his special line of studies, applied to our 
institutions and resources. They give remarkably full state- 
ments of judicial and penitentiary systems, and of social 
traits. Dr. Lieber's ample opportunities of observation, his 

translated from the German by W. W. Turner, 8vo., pp. 512, New York, 
1846. 

* " Journey through North America," by Prince Max v. New-wied-Wied, 
a most valuable work, rich in characteristic sketches of nature and life, as well 
as in scientific results. 

•j- " The Stranger in America ; comprising Sketches of the Manners of 
Society, &c.," by Francis Lieber, 2 vols. Svo., London, 1835. 



7 



306 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

familiarity with society and life both North and Soiith, and 
the philosophical tendency of his mind, make him a remarkably 
apt expositor of the most important questions relating to our 
comitry. His work was translated into English by a son 
of the celebrated jurist Hugo. 

Christian Schultz made an inland tour through the United 
States, in 1807-8, of six thousand miles, his description 
whereof was published in New York in 1810.* Though not 
intended for the public, his letters are intelligent, and, for 
the most part, accurate. Those referring to the Western Ter- 
ritories must have afforded seasonable and desirable informa- 
tion at that period ; and his account of the Middle States is 
in some respects highly satisfactory. A good illustration of 
the absence of locomotive facilities at that time on one of 
the most frequented lines of travel in our day, occurs in the 
notes of his journey from Albany to Oswego. The latter 
i:)lace, he tells us, was then " wholly dependent upon the salt 
trade." He went there by canal and through Wood Creek 
and the Onondaga River ; in fact, by the route described in 
Cooper's " Pathfinder," substituting a barge for a canoe. As 
to the town itself, thus slowly approached by water, and long 
the goal of fur trader, missionary, and military expeditions, 
this author thought its " appearance very contemptible from 
the irregular and confused manner in which the inhabitants 
build their houses ; " but his impression of the place changed 
when he surveyed the lake from the shore, and recognized so 
many local advantages and so vast and beautiful a prospect. 

A volume, written also from personal experience, of the 
same date, by Ludwig G^ale, entitled " My Emigration to the 
United States," is another of the early specimens of German 
Travels therein, since forgotten in the more complete and 
careful reports of later writers. Nor should the essay of a 
political philosopher and naturalist, E. A. W. Zimmex'man, 
be neglected. It is entitled " France and the Free States of 

* " Travels on an Inland Voyage through the States of New York, Penn- 
sylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, &c.," by Christian Schultz, 
with numerous maps and plates, 2 vols. 8vo., New York, 1810. 



NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 307 

North America," and appeared in 1795. Its author, a native 
of Hanover, and educated at Leyden and Gottingen, died in 
1815, and, "during the whole period of the French ascen- 
dency in Europe, was distinguished for his bold denunciation 
of the usurpations and oppressions of that Government." 

In 1839, a view of " Social and Public Life in the United 
States," by Nicholas H." Julius, appeared at Leipsic. It is 
written in a very intelligent and humane spirit, and with 
practical judgment. Paul William Duke of Wurtemberg's 
" Journey in North America in the Years 1825-'26," is finely 
descriptive, with vivid sketches of social life. It contains 
a detailed account of some of the German settlements. 
William"^ Gr is son characterizes ably the juridical, religious, 
and military relations of America, and comments on life 
there from careful observation. F. W. von "Wrede drew 
some authentic " Pictures of Life in the United States and 
Texas." In Count Gore's " Journey Round the World," the 
first volume is devoted to America ; and, the author having 
remained there longest, it is the best of the series. M. 
Busch's " Wanderings in the United States " is written with 
candor, and presents the extremes of light and shade, with 
no small humor ; while Francis Loher has some excellent 
national portraits in his " Lands and People in the Old and 
New World," and describes at length the " Germans in 
America," with whom he long resided. Frederick "Kapp 
published, at Gottingen, in 1854, a treatise on the slavery 
question, in its historical development, full of facts and just 
reasoning, although recent events have negatived its pro- 
phetic inductions. Louis von Baumbach's " New Letters 
from the United States" (Cassel, 1856), is a useful guide to 
the candid study of American life and institutions ; and 
Julius Frobel's "From America" (Leipsic, 1857) treats with 
esprit and geniaUty social and political questions. 

Li a Avork entitled " The Americans in their Moral, Social, 
and Political Relations," a Gei-man writer, Francis J.^ Grund 
(subsequently a naturalized citizen and active politician), ex- 
posed some of the superficial and false reasoning of English 



308 AMERICA AISTD HEK COMMENTATOKS. 

travellers in America. Published in Boston * and London in 
1837, and claiming to be the result of fourteen years' resi- 
dence in the country, it discussed, with much acuteness and 
candor, several unhackneyed topics of this prolific theme : 
among them, the aversion to amusements, the reception of 
foreigners, the relation of American literature to the English 
periodical press, and the influence of the Western settlements 
on the political prospects of America ; while the more famil- 
iar topics of education, universal suffi-age, slavery, and indus- 
trial enterprises, are treated with nmch discrimination. The 
political sympathies of the author give an emphasis to his 
arguments ; but he is by no means blind to the national defi- 
ciencies ; and in a subsequent work, evidently more especially 
devoted thereto — which, although ostensibly edited only, was 
written by him, and entitled " Aristocracy in America " — he 
exhibits them with sarcastic \'igor. His first book, however, 
was timely, true, and remarkably well written. He professes 
to have arrived at strict impartiality, and was chiefly insjjired 
by an " honest desire to correct prejudices, American and 
English, and not to furnish them with fresh aliment." He 
declares that the "Americans have been greatly misrepre- 
sented ; " and this not so much by ascribing to them spm-ious 
qualities, as by omitting to mention those which entitle them 
to honor and respect, and representing the foibles of certain 
classes as weaknesses belonging to the nation. In the opin- 
ion of this writer, " a remarkable trait of English travellers 
in the United States consists in their proneness to find the 
same faults with Americans which the people of the conti- 
nent of Europe are apt to find with themselves." He recog- 
nizes an " air of busy inquietude " as characteristic of the 
people, and " business " as the " soul " of American life ; yet 
he considers the tendency of their democracy " not to debase 
the wealthy in mind or fortune, but to raise the inferior 
classes to a moral elevation where they no longer need be 

* "The Americans in their Moral, Social, and Political Relations," by 
Francia J. Grund, 2 vols, in 1, 12mo., Boston, 183Y. 



NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 309 

degraded and despised." As to the " unhallowed custom of 
talking about trade and business, I must confess," he says, 
" not to have remarked it half as often as Hamilton. I rather 
think an honorable exception Avas made in his favor, in order 
to acquaint him the better with American affairs, on which 
they knew he was about to write a book." To this natural 
explanation of a circumstance which the English traveller 
magnifies into a national defect, the more kindly continental 
observer adds another which accounts for many false infer- 
ences : " From the writings of Basil Hall and Hamilton, it is 
evident that neither of the gentlemen became acquainted with 
any but the fashionable coteries of the large cities, and that 
the manners of the people, and esj)ecially of the respectable 
middle class, escaped altogether their immediate attention." 
He observes that " the most remarkable characteristic of 
Americans is the uncommon degree of intelligence that per- 
vades all classes ;" and thinks that " their proneness to argue 
lends a zest to conversation." To popular education he 
attributes the mental activity and enlightenment so striking 
to a European as general traits. " The German system," he 
remarks, " favors the development of the mind to the exclu- 
sion of all practical purposes. The American aims always 
at some application, and creates dexterity and readiness for 
action." In the Western communities, he finds an attractive 
" naivete of manners and grotesqueness of humor." N"o one, 
he says, can travel in the United States without making a 
business of it. " He must not exj)ect to stop except at the 
place fixed upon by the proprietors of the road or the steam- 
boat." The i^osition of a man of leisure in this country, 
unless he is interested in literary or scientific pursuits, he 
deems forlorn, because it is companionless. " There is no 
people on earth," he observes, " with whom business consti- 
tutes pleasure and industry amusement, to an equal degree as 
with the inhabitants of the United States." Hamilton attrib- 
utes the " total absence of the higher elegancies of life " iu 
this countiy to the " abolition of primogeniture ; " while this 
German commentator cheerfully accepts the condition that he 



310 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

" must resign his individual tastes to the wishes of the major- 
ity " in view of the compensatory benefits. " Every new 
State," he writes, " is a fresh guarantee for the continuance 
of the American Constitution, and directs the attention of 
the people to new sources of happiness and wealth. It in- 
creases the interest of all in the General Government, and 
makes individual success dependent on national prosperity." 
With such broad sympathies and liberal views, he protests" 
against the narrowness and the injustice of British writers, 
who have so pertinaciously misrepresented the country, its 
institutions and prospects, declaring that " the progress of 
America reflects but the glory of England. All the power 
she acquires extends the moral empire of England. Every 
page of American history is a valuable supplement to that of 
England. It is the duty of true patriots of both countries to 
support and uphold each other to the utmost extent compati- 
ble with national justice ; and it is a humiliating task either 
for private individuals or public men to make the foibles of 
either the subject of ridicule to the other." 

In his novels, Otto Euppius, who resided for a consider- 
able period in the United States, imdertook, in this form, to 
make his countrymen familiar with the various aspects of life 
in America. They are interesting and suggestive, and in 
many respects authentic, though not always free from those 
partial or overdrawn pictures which are inseparable from this 
form of writing. 

Another German author, for some years a resident in the 
United States, has made life and nature there the subject of 
several interesting and effective novels — after having, on his 
return home in 1826, published the general result of his ob- 
servation and experience on this side of the water. He came 
back the following year, and his first American romance ap- 
peared in Philadelphia soon after, under. the title of " To- 
keah ; or, The White Rose." Charles Seajsfield thus became 
known as an author. In 1829 and '30 he was one of the 
editors of the Courier des Etats UniSy and, soon after, went 
to Paris as correspondent of the New York Courier and 



NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 311 

Enquirer. In 1832 he A'isited Switzerland, and there pub- 
lished a translation of " Tokeah." So popular was this work 
abroad, that he resolved to compose a series of romances 
illustrative of American life. His keen observation, strong 
sympathies, and imaginative zest enabled him to mould into 
vivid pictures the scenes and characters with which he had 
become familiar in America, where the six novels devoted to 
that subject soon became known tlirough partial translations 
which appeared in BlacTxiooocV s Magazine. The intensity 
and freshness of these delineations excited much interest. 
They seemed to open a new and genuine vein of romance in 
American life, or, rather, to make the infinite possibilities 
thereof charmingly apparent. This was an experiment sin- 
gularly adapted to a German, who, with eveiy advantage of 
European education, in the freshness of life had emigrated to 
this country, and there worked and travelled, observed and 
reflected, and then, looking back from the ancient quietude 
of his ancestral land, could delineate, under the inspiration 
of contrast, all the wild and wonderful, the characteristic and 
original phases and facts of his existence in Texas, Pennsyl- 
vania, or New York. "Life in the New "World" was soon 
translated and published in the latter city. It was followed 
by " The Cabin Book ; or, Sketches of Life in Texas," and 
others of the series which abroad have given to thousands 
the most vivid impressions of the adventure, the scenery, and 
the characters of our frontier, and of many of the peculiar 
traits of our more confirmed civilization. Seatsfield resides 
alternately in Switzerland and the United States. 

Few modern travellers have won a more desirable reputa- 
tion for intelligent assiduity and an honest spirit than John 
G. Kohl, who, born at Breme in 1808, was educated at Got- 
tingen, Heidelberg, and Munich, and, after filling the oflice 
of private tutor in two noble families, established himself at 
Dresden, and thence made numerous excm-sions through A-ari- 
ous parts of Europe and America ; describing, with care and 
often with a singular thoroughness, the countries thus visited. 
Few records of travel convey so much interesting information. 



312 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

The attainments and the temper of Kohl alike fit him for his 
chosen department of literature ; for, to much historical and 
scientific information, an enlightened and ardent curiosit)', 
and a habit of patient investigation, he unites a liberal, 
urbane disposition, and a rare facility of adaptation. He 
deals chiefly with facts that come under his own observation, 
and views them in the light of history. Imagination is quite 
secondary to rational inquiry in the scoj^e of his studies from 
life ; but he is not destitute of sensibility to nature, nor 
wanting in that philosof)hic interest in man, whereby the 
records of travel become so suggestive and valuable. Still, 
to most of his readers the charm of his books is mainly their 
candid and complete report of local features, social circum- 
stances, and economical traits ; so that one is often surprised 
to find a hackneyed subject arrayed in fresh interest, through 
the new facts noted or the special vein of inquiry pursued by 
this genial and" intelligent cicerone. Kohl has written thus 
of Russia, Poland, Hungary, Styria, Bavaria, England, Scot- 
land, Ireland, Denmark, Switzerland, Holland, Istria, Dahna- 
tia, and other coimtries, explored by him with obvious zeal 
and vigilant observation. The tone of his mind may be in- 
ferred, not only from the extent of his books of travels and 
their fulness and authenticity, but also from the casual sub- 
jects which have occupied his indefatigable pen ; such as the 
" Influence of Climate on the Character and Destiny of the 
People ; " and " Esquisses de la Vie, de la Nature et des 
Peuples." The inquiries and impressions of so exj^erienced a 
traveller and comprehensive a student cannot be destitute of 
interest and value. During his sojourn among us, Kohl culti- 
vated the acquaintance of men of letters. He was eager in 
searching for the earliest maps and charts of the country and 
the coast. He domesticated himself where there was most 
to be learned, and won the esteem of all who knew him, by 
his naive., candid, and intelligent companionshiji. Thus far 
his published writings on America consist of an account of 
his visit to Canada, an expedition to Lake Superior, an elabo- 
rate sketch of the History of Discovery on this Continent, 



NOETHEKN ECTKOPEAN AVTtlTEES. 313 

and various local delineations, which have appeared in the 
London periodicals. He differs from other wi'iters by his 
geographical knowledge and the comparisons founded on ex-' 
tensive observations in other parts of the world. Although 
not blind to the incongruities and inequalities of our ciAoliza- 
tion, he is keenly alive to the progressive tendencies and 
actual privileges here realized. His eye for nature is scien- 
tific, his interpretation of national character acute, his judg- 
ments often historical in their basis ; and it is in the spirit of 
a kindly man of the world, and a scholar and thinker, that he 
looks on the spectacle of American life. With a true Ger- 
man patience and zest, he seeks the men and the things, the 
facts of the past and the traits of the present that interest 
him, and have, in his estimation, true significance as illustra- 
tive of national character or local traits. How he thus re- 
garded some of our literary and poKtical celebrities and social 
aspects and traits, appears from his accomit of Boston. It is 
curioits to compare his impressions of the metropolis of New 
England, viewed in such a spirit and for such an end, at this 
j)eriod, with the primitive picture of the Abbe Robin and the 
imbittered reminiscences of Consul Grattan : 

" Of all the cities of the American Union, Boston is the one that 
has most fully retained the character of an English locality. This 
is visible upon the first glance at its physiognomy and the style of 
building. The city is spread out over several islands and peninsulas, 
in the innermost nook of Massachusetts Bay. The heart of Boston 
is concentrated on a single small peninsula, at which all the advan- 
tages of position, such as depth of water, accessibility from the sea 
and other port conveniences, are so combined, that this spot neces- 
sarily became the centre of life, the Exchange, landing place, and 
market. 

'' The ground in this central spot rises toward the middle, and 
formerly terminated in a triple-peaked elevation (the Three Moun- 
tains), which induced the earliest immigrants to settle here. At the 
present time these three points have disappeared, to a great extent, 
through the spread of building ; but for all that, the elevation is per- 
ceptible for some distance, and the centre of Boston seems to tower 
over the rest of the city like an acropolis. From this centre numer- 
ous streets run to the circumference of the island, while others have 
14 



314 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOKS. 

been drawn parallel with it, just as Moscow is built round tbe 
Kremlin. All this is in itself somewhat European, and hence there 
are in Boston streets running up and down hill ; at some spots even 
a drag is used for the wheels of carts. The streets, too, are crooked 
and angular — a perfect blessing in America, where they generally 
run with a despairing straightness, like our German everlasting pop- 
lar alleys. At some corners of Boston — which is not like other 
American cities, divided chess-hoard-wise into blocks — you actually 
find surprises : there are real groups of houses. The city has a 
character of its own, and in some parts ofters a study for the archi- 
tect — things usually unknown in America. 

" The limitation of the city to a confined spot, and the irregular- 
ity of the building style, may partly be the cause that the city 
reminds us of Europe. But that the city assumed so thorough an 
English type, may be explained by the circumstance that Boston re- 
ceived an entirely English population. In 1640, or ten years after 
its formation, it had five thousand English denizens, at a period when 
New York was still a small Dutch country town, under the name of 
New Amsterdam. Possibly, too, the circumstance that it was the 
nearest seaport to England, may have contributed to keep up old 
English traditions here. The country round Boston bears a remark- 
able likeness to an English landscape, and hence, no doubt, the State 
obtained the name of New England ; but as in various parts of New 
England you may fancy yourself in Kent, so, when strolling about 
the streets of Boston, you may imagine yourself in the middle of 
London. In both cities the houses are built with equal simplicity, 
and do not assume that pomp of marble pilasters and decoration 
noticeable at New York and elsewhere. The doors and windows, 
the color and shape, are precisely such as you find in London. In 
Boston, too, there is a number of small green squares; and, amid 
the turmoil of business, many a quiet cul de sac, cut off" from the rest 
of the street system. 

" Externals of this nature generally find their counterpart in the 
manners and spirit of the inhabitants, and hence I believe that Bos- 
ton is still more English and European than any other city of the 
Union. This is visible in many things ; for instance, in the fact that 
the police system and public surveillance are more after the European 
style than anywhere else in America. Even though it may not be 
' quite so bad ' as in London, it strikes visitors from the West and 
South, and hence they are apt to abuse Massachusetts as a police- 
ridden State. Even in the fict that the flag of the Eevolution was 
first raised in Boston — and hence the city is generally called ' The 
Cradle of American Freedom ' — we may find a further proof that 



NOETHEEN EUEOPEAN WEITEES. 315 

the population was penetrated with the true Anglo-Saxon tempera- 
ment. 

" This is specially perceptible in the scientific and social life of 
Boston, which suits Europeans better than the behavior in other 
American towns. Boston, in proportion to the number of its popu- 
lation, has more public and private libraries and scientific societies 
than any other metropolis of the Union ; and, at the same time, a 
great number of well-organized establishments for the sick, the poor, 
the blind, and the insane, which are regarded as models in the Uni- 
ted States. Boston has, consequently, a fair claim to tbe title of the 
'American Athens.' There are upward of one hundred printing 
oifices, from which a vast number of periodicals issue. The best and 
oldest of these is the Korth American Heview, supplied with articles 
by such men as Prescott, Everett, Channing, Bancroft, &c. Among 
the Boston periodicals there has existed for some time past one de- 
voted to heraldry, the only one of the sort in the Union, which, per- 
haps, as a sign of the aristocratic temper of the Bostonians, evidences 
a deeply rooted Anglicanism. 

" The Historical Society of Boston is the oldest of that nature in 
the country. Since the commencement of the present century, it has 
published a number of interesting memoirs ; and the history of no 
portion of the Union has been so zealously and thoroughly investi- 
gated as that of New England. The ' Lowell Institute,' established 
and endowed by a rich townsman, is an institution which works 
more efiicaciously for the extension of knowledge and education than 
any other of the same character in America. It offers such hand- 
some rewards for industry and talent, that even the greatest scien- 
tific authorities of England — for instance, Lyell — have at times found 
it worth while to visit Boston, and lecture in the hall of the Lowell 
Institution. In one of its suburbs — Cambridge — Boston possesses 
Harvard College, the best and oldest university in America ; and it 
has also in the heart of the city a medical school. The city library, 
in its present reformed condition, sur])asses in size and utility most 
of such establishments to be found in Germany. 

" At Boston, too, private persons possess collections most inter- 
esting for science and art, which prove the existence of a higher 
feeling among the inhabitants of the city. During my short stay 
there I discovered and visited a considerable number. For instance, 
I met with a linen draper, who first showed me his stores near the 
waterside, then took me in his carriage to his suburbanum, where I 
found, in a wing expressly built for its reception, a library contain- 
ing all the first editions of the rarest works about the discovery and 
settlement of America, which are now worth their weight in gold. 



316 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. 

This worthy Boston tradesman was a very zealous member of the 
Historical Society, and has already published several memoirs upon 
his speciality (the earliest history of the American settlements). I 
was also taken to the villa of another tradesman, who made it the 
business of his life to make the most perfect collection of editions 
of the Bible. His collection is the only one of the sort in America, 
and, at the time I saw it, consisted of no less than twelve hundred 
Bibles, in every sort of edition and shape, published in all the lan- 
guages and countries of the world, among them being the greatest 
typographical rarities. I was also enabled to inspect a splendid col- 
lection of copperplate engravings, equally belonging to a tradesman : 
it consisted of many thousand plates, belonging to all schools, coun- 
tries, and epochs. The owner has recently presented it to Cambridge 
University, wliere it is now being arranged by a German connoisseur. 

" One evening I was invited to the house of a Boston tradesman, 
where I found, to my surprise, another variety of artistic collections. 
It was a partly historical, partly ethnographical museum, which the 
owner has arranged in a suite of most elegant rooms, and which he 
allowed us to inspect after tea. His speciality lay in weapons and 
coats of mail, and the walls were covered with magnificent speci- 
mens bought up in all parts of Europe, regardless of cost. He pos- 
sesses all the weapons employed before the invention of gunpowder ; 
while in an adjoining room were all the blood-letting tools of Japan. 
In another was a similar collection from China, and several other 
countries. Never in my life have I seen so many different forms of 
knives, hatchets, battle axes, and lances collected together as at this 
house. 

" At the same time, the company assembled on that evening was 
of great interest. Among others, we were honored by the presence 
of Fanny Kemble, who, as is well known, belongs to the United 
States since her marriage with an American. The fact that this most 
intellectual of artistes has selected Boston as her abode, will also 
bear good testimony to the character of the city. During my stay 
in Boston she was giving readings from Shakspeare, and I heard her 
in the 'Merchant of Venice.' The readings took place in a magnifi- 
cent hall capable of containing two thousand persons, and it was 
quite full. I have frequently heard Tieck, Devrient, and many oth- 
ers of our best dramatic readers ; but I am bound to say that Fanny 
Kemble is the best of all I ever heard. She is graceful in her move- 
ments, and possesses a well-formed chest, and an energetic, almost 
masculine organ. On the evening I heard her she was hoarse, in 
consequence of a cold, and, by her own statement, weak and lan- 
guid; but, for all that, managed so admirably that nothing of the 



NOETHEEN EUKOPEAN WEITEES. 317 

sort was perceptible. She developed all the male and female parta 
in the play — especially the Jew's — so characteristically and clearly, 
that I could not help foncying I had the whole thing before me, bril- 
liantly designed on Gobelin tapestry. She accompanied her reading 
with lively gesticulations, but did not lay more stress on them than 
is usual in an ordinary reading. The Boston public were silent and 
delighted ; and it is on account of this public that I insert my re- 
marks about Fanny Kemble. I was charmed with the praise Avhich 
this excellent English lady bestowed on our German actors during a 
conversation I had with her. She told me that she preferred to see 
Shakspeare acted on a German stage, especially by Devrient. And 
this, she added, was the opinion of her father, Charles Kemble. The 
circumstance that his wife was a native of Vienna may have contrib- 
uted, however, to make Charles Kemble better acquainted with the 
character of the German stage. 

" Of course it was not in my power to inspect all the collections of 
Boston, and I need scarcely add that I found magnificent libraries in 
the houses of a Prescott, a Ticknor, an Everett, &c. In Boston, a 
good deal of the good old English maxim has been kept up, that 
every one buys a book he requires. A gr%at quantity of rare and 
handsome books wander from all parts of Europe annually to these 
libraries. In the same way as the Emperor Nicholas had his mili- 
tary agents in every state, the Americans have their literary agents, 
who eagerly buy up our books. In London I was acquainted with a 
gentleman permanently residing there, who was a formidable rival to 
the British Museum, and found his chief customers among the Bos- 
ton amateurs, though he had others in New York and elsewhere. 

" When they desire to satisfy any special craving, the Americans 
are not a whit behind the English in not shunning expense or outlay. 
Thus I was introduced, at Philadelphia, to a book collector, whose 
speciality was Shakspeare. He had specimens of every valuable edi- 
tion of the poet's works. Only one of the oldest and rarest editions, 
of which but three copies exist, was missing from his shelves ; and 
when he heard that one of these would shortly be put up for sale in 
London, he sent a special agent over with secret instructions and 
carte MancJie. He succeeded, though I am afraid to say at what an 
outlay of dollars, and the expensive book was shipped across the 
water. When it arrived at Philadelphia, the overjoyed owner in- 
vited all the friends of Shakspeare in the city, and gave them a bril- 
liant party, at which the jewel — an old, rusty folio — was displayed 
under a In-illiant liglit upon a gold -embroidered velvet cushion. In- 
terminable toasts and speeches Avere given, and finally the volume 
was incorporated in the library, where it occupied but a very small 
space. 



318 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

" In other American cities I saw various remarkable collections 
of rarities — as, for instance, Mr. Lenox's, at New York, who has a 
mania for bringing together all the books, documents, and pamphlets 
referring to the history of America. Mr. Peter Force, of Washing- 
ton, has a similar one ; but I will not stop to describe it, but return 
to Boston, which is to some extent the metropolis of such collec- 
tions. 

"Alexander von Humboldt's library has been made known to the 
world in a copperplate, but I must confess that I could draw a much 
more attractive picture of some of the studies of the Boston savans. 
In their arrangement, in the picturesque setting out of the books and 
curiosities, in the writing tables, and chairs, as ingenious as they are 
comfortable, in the wealth of pictures and busts found in these 
rooms, generally lighted from above, you find a combination of the 
English desire for comfort and the American yearning after external 
splendor. The Americans are the only people in the world who pos- 
sess not merely merchant princes, but also author princes. 

" I visited several of these distinguished men in their spacious 
and elegant studies. One morning I was taken to the house of the 
celebrated Edward Ev%rett, one of the great men of Boston, who, 
first as preacher, then as professor of Greek, and lastly as author and 
speaker, has attained so prominent a position in the Union, and is 
still an active and busied man in spite of sixty odd years having 
passed over his bead. Any remarkable book a man may have writ- 
ten, or any sort of notoriety that brings him before the public, can 
be employed in America as political capital, and lead to position and 
influence in the state, Tbe preacher and professor, Everett, who for 
a season edited the ITorth American EcTiew, and very cleverly praised 
and defended in its pages the manners and Constitution of his coun- 
try, soon after became, in consequence of his writings, member of 
Congress, a leader of the old Whig party, Governor of Massachu- 
setts, and lastly a diplomatist and American ambassador to England. 
Like many American politicians who have held the latter oflice, he 
was frequently proposed as candidate for the Presidency, but did not 
reach the chair, because the old Whigs had lost mi;ch of their former 
influence. On the final dissolution of his party, Everett devoted 
himself to the sciences and belles lettres. At the time when I formed 
his acquaintance, he was engaged in delivering a public lecture in all 
the cities of the Union on the character of Washington. The great 
man's qualities naturally had a brilliant light thrown on them, and, 
in comparison with our renowned monarchs, such as Frederick the 
Great, Joseph II., and Napoleon I., the latter came ofl^ second best. 
Everett had learned his lecture by heart, and delivered it with great 



NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 319 

emphasis and considerable success, though I confess that when I 
heard it I could not conscientiously bestow such praise on it as did 
the patriotic Americans. In order that the lecture might not lose 
the chai'm of novelty, all the American papers were requested to 
give no short-hand report of it : hence it remained unknown in each 
city until the lecturer had publicly delivered it. Everett saved up 
his earnings for a patriotic object — namely, the purchase of Wash- 
ington's estate of Mount Vernon, for which purpose a ladies' com- 
mittee, had been formed. In 1857, Everett had collected more than 
foi'ty thousand dollars toward this object. There is hardly another 
country besides America in which such a sum could be collected by 
reading a lecture of a few pages, however eftective it might be. 
Moreover, the whole affair is characteristic of the land and that is 
why I have related it. 

" Boston has ever been not only the birthplace, but the gathering 
ground of celebrated men. In politics it frequently rivalled Vir- 
ginia, while in the production of poets and literary men it stands far 
above all other cities of the Union. Starting from Benjamin Frank- 
lin, who was born on one of the small islands in Boston harbor, 
down to Everett and his contemporaries, there has never been a de- 
ficiency of great and remarkable men in the city. Hancock, who 
drew up with Jefferson the Constitution of the United States, lived 
in Boston ; and the most distinguished of the few Presidents the 
North has produced — the two Adamses — belonged to Boston, where 
they began and closed their career. Daniel Webster, the greatest 
American orator of recent times, received his education in Boston, 
and spent all that portion of his life there when he was not engaged 
at Washington. There are, in fact, entire families in Boston — as, for 
instance, the Winthrops, Bigelows, &c. — which have been rich in 
talented persons ever since the foundation of the city. 

" When I visited Boston in 1857, the circle of celebrated, influen- 
tial, and respected men was not small, and I had opportunity to form 
the acquaintance of several of them. Unfortunately, I knocked to 
no purpose at the door of the liberal and gifted Theodore Parker, 
whose house is ever open to Germans. The noble, equally liberal, 
and high-hearted Channing, whose pious, philanthropic, and philo- 
sophic writings I had admired from my earliest youth, and who had 
labored here as the apostle of the Unitarians, I only found repre- 
sented by a son, who does honor to his great father's memory. The 
Websters and Adamses had also been dead for some years, though I 
formed the acquaintance of several of their personal friends, who 
told me numerous anecdotes about them. 

"I am sorry to say, too, I missed seeing George Ticknor, the 



320 AMERICA AND HEK COl^IMENTATOES. 

great historian of Spanish literature, a true child of Boston, where 
he was born and educated, and where he spends his time in study 
when he is not travelling in Europe, which was unfortunately the 
case at the period of my visit. I saw nothing of him but his splen- 
did Spanish library, which he exclusively collected for the purpose 
of his classical work, which has been translated into almost every 
language. 

"As a compensation, Prescott, who was summoned away some 
time ago, to the regret of all his friends, was at home to receive me, 
and he was one of the most amiable men I ever met. 'I saw him 
both at his own house and in society, and greedily took advantage of 
every opportunity that oifered for approaching him. As he was de- 
scended from an old New England family, and was educated, and 
lived, and worked almost entirely in Boston — he had only visited 
Europe once, and had travelled but little in the United States — I 
could consider him as a true child of Boston, and as an example of 
the best style of education that city is enabled to offer. He was a 
man of extremely dignified and agreeable manners, and a thorough 
gentleman in his behavior. I met but few Americans so distin- 
guished by elegance and politeness ; and when I first met him, and 
before knowing his name, I took him for a diplomatist. He had not 
the slightest trace of the dust of books and learning, and, although 
he had been hard at work all day, when he emerged into daylight 
he was a perfect man of the world. I found in him a great resem- 
blance, both in manner and features, with that amiable Frenchman 
Mignet. He was at that time long past his sixtieth birthday, and yet 
his delicate, nobly-chiselled face possessed such a youthful charm that 
he could fascinate young ladies. In society his much-regretted weak- 
ness of sight was hardly perceptible ; and at dinner he made such 
good use of his limited vision, that he could help himself without 
attracting the slightest attention. He frequently remarked that this 
weakness of sight, which others lamented so greatly, was the chief 
cause of his devoting himself to historical studies. Still it impeded 
his studies greatly ; for he was obliged to send persons, at a terrible 
expense, to copy the documents he roquired in the archives of Spain. 
He could only employ these documents and other references — par- 
tially, at any rate — through readers. He was obliged to prepare 
much in his mind and then dictate it, without the help of his hand 
and fingers, which, as every author knows, offer such aid to the head, 
and, as it were, assist in thinking. At times he could only write by 
the help of a machine that guided his hand. I say purposely 'at 
times,' for every now and then the sight of his own eyes became so 
excellent and strong, that he could undertake personally the me- 



NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITEKS. 321 

chanical part of his labor. Still, literature is indebted to Prescott's 
semi-blindness for his elaborate historical works on Peru, Mexico, 
Isabella, and Philip II. ; for, had he kept the sight of both eyes, he 
would have continued the career he had already begun as barrister, 
and in all probability have ended as a politician and a statesman. 

"Another somewhat younger literary talent Boston was proud of 
at that period, was Motley, the historian, who in many respects may 
be placed side by side with Prescott. Like him, he also belongs to a 
wealthy and respected Boston ftimily ; and like him, too, he has de- 
voted himself to history, through pure love. His union with tlie 
Muse is no marriage de convenance^ but he entered into it througli a 
hearty aifection. The subject that Motley selected, ' The History of 
the Netherlands in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,' had a 
special interest for his countrymen. At that period Holland was 
remarkably influential all over the New "World, and, ijiter alia, laid 
the foundations of New York State. This State and its still some- 
what Dutch inhabitants consequently regard the Netherlands to some 
extent as the mother country, and their history as a portion of their 
own. They feel as much interested in it as the French do in the his- 
tory of the Franks in Germany. Moreover, they like to compare an 
event like the insurrection of the Netherlands against Spain with 
their own revolt against England. Motley, therefore, selected a very 
popular theme. After learning something of the world as attache 
to the American embassy at Petersburg, he travelled in Germany, 
and stayed for several years at Dresden, the Hague, and other Euro- 
pean cities, in order to employ the libraries for his purpose. Nine 
years ago, he read to a small circle of friends in Dresden, myself 
among the number, extracts from his historical work — for instance, 
his description of the execution of Counts Egmont and Horn — and 
then returned to America, Avhere he published it. This work was a 
great success ; and when I met Motley again at Boston, he had just 
been crowned with laurel. He was a handsome man, in the prime 
of life, with dark curly hair. Unluckily, he did not like his country 
sufficiently well to remain in it, and returned quickly to Europe, dur- 
ing my visit to Boston. Perhaps he had lived too long upon our con- 
tinent, and had not the patience to go through the process of re- 
Americanizing, to which an American who has long been absent is 
bound to subject himself. He proceeded to London, where he re- 
sided several years, continuing his studies, and always a welcome 
guest in fiishionable society, until the recent troubles forced him to 
return home. 

" We might fairly speak of a thorough historical school of Bos- 
ton, for nearly all the recent remarkable historians of America have 
14* 



322 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

issued from this school. Among these I may specially mention 
George Bancroft, who has selected the history of his native land aa 
his special study. His career has a great likeness to that of Everett: 
like him, he went to Gottingen when a young man, and acquired his 
tendency for historic research from Heeren, Eichhorn, and Schlosser. 
Like Everett, he began his career as a professor at Cambridge Uni- 
versity, and like him, also, his talent and the growing popularity of 
his books led him up to important offices and posts under Govern- 
ment. He was for a time secretary to the navy at Washington, then 
American ambassador in England, and at last, as he was not success- 
ful in politics, like Everett, he retired from public life into the calmer 
atmosphere of his study, where he has remained for several years, 
dividing his time between literary work and pleasant society. Dur- 
ing the winter he now resides at New York, and during the summer 
at a charming villa near that pretty little watering place, Newport, 
on Narraganset Bay, whence he pays a visit now and then, though, 
to his old Boston. I had the good fortune to visit this active and 
energetic historian at both his winter and summer abode. At New 
York, he passes the whole winter shut up in his splendid library, 
like a bee in his honey cell. In the midst of the turmoil of business, 
his lamp may be seen glimmering at an early hour ; and he lights it 
himself, as he does his fire, in order not to spoil the temper of his 
lazy American helps for the day. 

" I am forced to remark that the result of my observations is, that 
this zeal and this ' help yourself are no rarity among American 
men of letters. Thus I always remember with pleasure old Senator 
Benton, whose ' History of the American Congress,' although an ex- 
cellently written work, and a thorough mine in which to study the 
politics, parties, and prominent men of America, is, unfortunately, 
but little known on this side the water. This brave old Eoman Ben- 
ton, of Missouri, a man otherwise greatly attacked for his vanity and 
eccentricities, I remember seeing, one morning at six, lighting his 
fire, boiling his coffee, and then devoting the morning hours to 
his History. 

" This Benton was, at that period, above seventy years of age, 
and long a grandfather. He wrote his ' History ' with so firm and 
current a hand, that the copy went almost uncorrected from his table 
to the printing office, and within a few months entire volumes could 
be worked ofi". And yet he could only devote his morning and late 
evening hours to the task ; for, so long as the sun was up, he thought 
it his duty to take part in the debates of Congress and quarrel in the 
committee rooms. At times, he broke his labors entirely off, because 
he considered it necessary to take a trip to Missouri, and agitate for 



NORTHERN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 323 

some political purpose or other. One evening, it happened that his 
entire library, with all the manuscripts it contained, fell a prey to 
the flames. He had temporarily taken up his quarters in a small 
wooden house in the vicinity of the Capitol, which caught fire, 

" These fires are an almost regular and constantly menacing ca- 
lamity to American authors, their libraries, and manuscripts. During 
my short stay in the United States, I heard of a whole series of cases 
in which valuable literary undertakings were completely interrupted 
by fire. Senator Benton, on the occasion to which I refer, lost his 
entire library, a large portion of manuscript ready for the press, and 
a heap of materials, extracts, and references, which he had collected 
for a new volume of his ' History.' As I was on rather intimate 
terms with him and his family, and, as an author myself, felt a spe- 
cial compassion for him, I visited him a few days after to ofter him 
my sympathy. As it happened. President Pierce came up at the 
same moment, and for the same object. We found the aged man, to 
our surprise and admiration, not in the slightest degree atfected or 
excited. He had removed from the ruins to the house of his son-in- 
law, the celebrated traveller Fremont, had had a new table put to- 
gether, and was busy rewriting his manuscript. With Anglo-Saxon 
coolness and a pleasant face, which reminded me of the stoic referred 
to by Montaigne, who did not allow himself to be disturbed in his 
speech when a dog tore a piece out of the calf of his leg, he told us 
the story of the burning of his books. Mr. Benton allowed that a 
quarto volume of his work, with all the materials belonging to it, 
was entirely destroyed ; but he said, with a smile, while tossing a 
little grandchild on his knee, ' It is no use crying over spilled milk,' 
He had begun his work afresh on the next day, and retained in his 
head most of what he had written down. He hoped that he should 
be able to collect once more the necessary materials— partly, at any 
rate — and he expected that the printing would not be delayed for 
many days. 

" This man, in his present position — and there could not be a 
more lamentable one for an author — appeared to me like an old Ro- 
man. And, in truth, old Senator Benton had something thoroughly 
Koman in his features, just as you might expect to find on an ancient 
coin. And all this was the more remarkable to me, because I dis- 
covered such an internal value in a man who in the external world 
afibrded such scope for jibes. In Congress I saw him twice play the 
part of a quarrelsome and impotent old man. At times — especially 
when he marched into the field to support the claims of his son-in- 
law Fremont, or any other distinguished members of his family of 
whom he was proud, and whom he thought he must take under hig 



324 AMERICA AND HER COMl^IENTATOKS. 

wing, like a patriarch of old — he grew so excited, that the President 
several times tried in vain to stop him. Once I saw him leave Con- 
gress cursing and gesticulating, and loudly declaring that he would 
never again appear in that assembly. When, too, he rode up and 
down the main street of Washington, with his grandson on a little 
pony by his side, and keeping as close as possible to the pavement, 
that he might be bowed to by the ladies and gentlemen, they cer- 
tainly saluted, but afterward ridiculed the 'great man.' Hence it 
caused me special pleasure, I repeat, to recognize in so peculiar a man 
an inner worth, and find the opportunity to say something in his 
praise. After all, there were heroes among the wearers of full-bot- 
tomed wigs and pigtails. 

"Since then, the inexorable subduer of all heroes has removed old 
Senator Benton forever from his terrestrial activity. He was enabled 
stoically to withstand the fire ; but death, which caught him up four 
years ago, did not allow him to complete his work. Still, the frag- 
ments of it that lie before us contain extraordinarily useful matter 
for the history of the Union from the beginning of this century, and 
I therefore recommend them strongly to public writers at the pres- 
ent moment, when everybody wishes to know everything about 
America. But I will now return to Boston. 

"In the hot summer, when Longfellow, Agassiz, and other dis- 
tinguished men of Boston fly to the rock of Nahant, Bancroft, as 
I said, seeks shelter on the airy beach of Newport ; and I remember, 
with great pleasure, the interesting trip I took thither for the pur- 
pose of spending a couple of days with the historian. The pleasant 
little town of Newport, which a hundred years back was a promis- 
ing rival of New York, is now only known as the most fashionable 
watering place in the Union. Most of the upper ten, as well as the 
politicians and diplomatists of Washington, congregate here in July 
and August. Splendid steamers, some coming from New York 
through Long Island Sound, others from Boston through the archi- 
pelago of Narraganset Bay, bring up hundreds of people daily. On 
one of these green islands in the bay, Newport is built, surrounded 
by a number of villas and gardens, which stretch out along the 
beach. And one of these hospitable villas belongs to the celebrated 
historian, who in that character, and as ex-minister and statesman, 
is reverently regarded as one of the ' lions ' of Newport. 

" When I entered his house, at a late hour, I found him sur- 
rounded by the ladies of his family, to whom he was reading a 
newly finished chapter of his ' History ' from the manuscript. He 
invited me to listen, and told me that it was his constant practice to 
read his works in this fashion in the domestic circle, and take the 



KOKTHEEN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 325 

opinion of his hearers, but, above all, of liis amiable and highly edu- 
cated wife. This, he said to me, was the best way of discovering 
any lack of clearness or roughness of style, and after this trial he 
made his final corrections. 

" Newport is also known, to those versed in American antiqui- 
ties, as the spot where an old octagonal building still stands, which 
the Danish savans believe to have been erected long prior to Colum- 
bus, and which they consider was built by the old Norman seafarers 
and heroes who visited America about the year 1000. This monu- 
ment was very interesting to me to visit in the company of the his- 
torian of the United States, even though the townspeople regard it 
as the foundation of an old windmill, that belonged to a former in- 
habitant of Newport. Bancroft was of opinion that the good people 
of Newport were more likely to hit the truth than the scientific men 
of Copenhagen. I, too, after an inspection, in situ, consider the 
opinion of the latter so little founded, that it is hardly worth contra- 
dicting. As is well known, to the south of New England, in the 
middle of a swamp on Taunton River, there is a huge rock covered 
with all sorts of grooves and marks, which the Danish savans regard 
as a Runic inscription, also emanating from the Normans. The 
Danes have even gone so far as to decipher the word 'Thorfiun,' as 
the name of one of the Norman heroes, while others believe that 
they are marks and memoranda made by an Indian hand ; while 
others, again, are of opinion that the grooves and scratches are 
produced by natural causes. 

" Bancroft described to me the difficulties he experienced in 
reaching this rock — at one moment wading through the water, at 
another forcing his way through scrub. He was, liowever, unable 
to convince himself of the truth of any one of the above three 
hypotheses ; and hence, in his ' History of the United States,' he 
could only say that the much-discussed Taunton River inscription 
did not afford a certainty of the presence of the Normans in these 
parts. But I must hasten back to Boston, where I have many au 
excellent friend awaiting me. 

"First of all rises before my mental eye the image of that noble 
senator, Charles Sunmer, one of the most honored men of Boston, 
whom I visited not only here in his birtliplace, where he spends his 
leisure hours with his mother and relatives, but also rtt Washington, 
where he was delivering liis bold and fiery speeches against slavery. 
"While at the capital, I heard him deliver that magnificent speech 
which, although it lasted for several hours, Avas listened to in speech- 
less silence by the whole Senate, even by the Southern members who 
were boiling over with fury, and entailed on this noble man the bru- 



326 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

tal attack from one of the chivalry of the South, which laid him on 
a bed of sickness for weeks, where he hovered between life and 
death, 

" How painful and sad it was to see this tall and stately man 
felled like a pine tree, and writhing in agony on his couch ! His 
noble face, in which his lofty intellect and towering mind spoke out, 
was swollen and lacerated, as if he had been under the claws of a 
bear. English, Germans, French, Spaniards, and Italians were the 
first to hurry to him on the day of the outrage, to display their sym- 
pathy and respect, and lay a crown of honor on his bleeding temples. 
With this great man, after his return from Europe, and several kin- 
dred spirits, I used to spend pleasant evenings en petit comite in Bos- 
ton, and felt delighted at the opportunity of discussing with them the 
great questions of the day. Not so pleasant, though equally remark- 
able, were my feelings when I returned home at night from such an 
intellectual and sympathizing circle, and was compelled to listen to 

the expectorations of a Colonel B , of Carolina, who lodged in 

the same hotel. He made it a point to lie in ambush for me every 
night, to smoke a cigar, drink a glass of grog, and take the oppoi'tu- 
nity of explaining to me his views about the North. Although he 
had travelled in Fi'ance and Germany, associated with the nobility, 
and belonged to the Southern aristocracy, the Colonel was so full of 
prejudices against the North, that he walked about among the New 
Englanders of Boston like a snarling sheep dog among a flock of 
lambs. He ' pished' and ' pshawed,' even abused loudly and bitterlj 
all he saw, both the men — the accursed Yankees, their narrow- 
hearted views, their stiff regulations, their unpolished manners — as 
well as things, such as the Northern sky, the scenery, the towns, vil- 
lages, and country houses. All that Boston or a Bostonian had or 
possessed seemed to him infected with abolitionism. He would even 
look on, with a sarcastic smile, when, during our conversation, I 
stroked a pretty little spaniel belonging to a Boston lady. He could 
not endure this Boston animal, and if ever it came within his reach 
he was sure to give it a harmless kick. Nothing was right with him, 
of course — least of all the Boston newspapers, in which he pointed 
out to me articles every evening, which, according to his opinion, 
were horrible, perfidious, atheistical, full of gall and poison, although 
I could not discover anything of the sort in them when he read them 
aloud to me with many gesticulations. To the people who sur- 
rounded us he generally behaved politely, because, as I said, he was 
a Southern gentleman, and did not let it be seen how his heart heaved 
and boiled. But if any one took up the cudgels with him, merely 
expressed an opinion that had the remotest connection with the sla- 



NOETHEKN EUROPEAN WKITERS. 327 

very question, or smelled of abolitionism, he would break out into 
the most enthusiastic diatribes in defence of the peculiar Institution. 
His glances would become passionate, and his tone insulting. He 
appeared evidently bent on war, and I was often surprised that the 
Yankees put up with so much from him, and let him escape with a 
whole skin. In the South, had a Northerner gone to one tenth of 
the same excess, it would have been enough to hand him over to the 
tender mercies of Judge Lynch. 

" If I asked him why he had come to this North, which he so 
heartily despised, he would reply that, unhappily, his physicians had 
found it necessary to send him into this exile for the sake of his 
health ; and he had long had an intention of visiting, on the North- 
ern lakes, the poor Indians who were so shamefully maltreated by 
the Yankees. The sufferings of these unhappy tribes, who perished 
beneath the heel of the oppressor, and pined away in their shameful 
fetters, had long touched his heart. lie could never think of them 
without emotion, and he now intended to go as far as t])e cataracts 
of St. Anthony to give the Sioux a feast, and offer them some relief 
from their shameful martyrdom. I remembered that I had once 
before noticed the same compassion for the Indians in a Southern 
slaveowner, and consequently that it is, in all probability, traditional 
among these people, to answer the reproaches cast on them for slave- 
holding, by accusing their hostile brethren of ill-treating the Indians. 
Although I in no way shared my Southern friend's views of sla- 
very and abolition, but was generally in the opposition, as a foreigner 
I did not seem to him so utterly repulsive as these God-forgotten 
Yankees. At first, at any rate, he believed that he should not be 
washing a blackamoor white with me. If I only would visit the 
South, he expressed his opinion I should be speedily converted, and 
grow enthusiastic for his side. Hence he condescended to argue with 
and instruct me, while he gnashed his teeth at his Northern country- 
men when they dared to address him on the vexed question. Toward 
the end, however, I began to perceive that he was giving me up as 
incorrigible, and extended his enmity to me as well. We at length 
parted, not exactly as sympathetic souls ; and when I now think of 
my Southerner stalking about Boston like a tornado in a human 
shape, I do not understand how it was that I did not then see civil 
war ante fores in that country. 

" It may be imagined what a relief, joy, and comfort it was for 
me, after the stormy evenings I spent with the Southerner, to be in- 
vited tlie following day to a dinner table, where I found all the men 
with whom I sympathized, and whom I respected, assembled. The 
old Flemish painters, in their fruit and flower pieces, and in what is 



328 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. 

called ' still life,' have striven to represent the roast meats, wine 
flasks, cr3'stal glasses, grapes, and oranges which decorated the tables 
of their rich contemporaries. But how can I depict snch a dinner at 
Boston, where a Longfellow took the chair, an Agassiz acted as 
croupier, a Prescott was my left, a Motley my right hand neighbor, 
and where my vis-d-ri^ was a tall, thin, dry-looking man, who, I was 
told, was Ralph Waldo Emerson ? Between the epergnes and flower 
vases I could see also the characteristic features of noble and distin- 
guished men ; the gray head of a Winthrop, or the animated face of 
such a benefactor to humanity as Dr. Howe, whom the blind and 
the deaf and dumb combine to bless. "When I reflect how rare such 
highly gifted men are in the world, and how much more rare it is to 
be enabled to see a dozen of them sitting together cheerfully and 
socially over their wine, I find that we caimot suflicieutly value such 
moments which accidents produce, and which, perhaps, never again 
occur in the traveller's life. When we read such books as those of 
Mrs. TroUope, Captain Basil Hall, or Dickens, we might suppose that 
there is nothing in America that can be called ' good society.' But 
when a man finds himself in such company as fell to my lot in Bos- 
ton, he begins to think diiFerently, and is at length disposed to allow 
that in America a good tone peculiar to the country, and possessing 
highly characteristic qualities, exists. I concede that it is rare, and 
I believe that the American, in order to appropriate this tone, must 
have passed the ocean several times between America and Europe ; 
in this, imitating his twice-across-the-line Madeira (which, by the 
by, is magnificent in some Boston houses). The American, as a rule, 
becomes really full flavored in and through Europe. What I would 
assert, though, is, that the American has a peculiar material to take 
the polish which Europe can impart, and that, when he has rubbed 
off" his American horns — for it is quite certain that the American is 
as much of a greenhorn in Europe as the European seems to be in 
the United States — a species of polish is visible, which possesses its 
peculiar merit, and nothing like it is to bo found in Europe. There 
is no trace of mannerism or affectation ; none of that insipid polite- 
ness, prudery, and superfinedom into Avhich Europeans are so apt to 
fall. In the well-educated American we meet with a great simplicity 
of manner, and a most refreshing masculine dignity. Both in Bos- 
ton and New York I visited private clubs, and. met gentlemen belong- 
ing to the bar, the church, the mercantile classes, &c., who possessed 
all these qualities in an eminent degree. In these small retired clubs 
— they may have been select, and I am unable to decide Low many 
of the sort may exist — humor and merriment were so well controlled, 
wit and jesting were so pleasantly commingled with what was seri- 
ous and instructive, that I never knew pleasanter places for men." 



NOKTHEEN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 329 

In our inadequate because inevitably brief summary of 
German writers on America, should not be forgotten the 
learned widow of the lamented Professor Edward Robinson, 
who, among other notable writings published under the name 
of " Talvi," gave to her countrymen (Leij^sic, 1847) "The 
Colonization of New England " — an able historical digest of 
the early history of that region and people, subsequently 
translated by a son of William Hazlitt, and published in Lon- 
don (1851) in two handsome duodecimo volumes. In this 
work the details of each original State organization are 
given, and much incidental light thrown on the character of 
the people and the tendencies and traits of local society at 
this primitive era. Relying upon the Diary of Bradford, first 
Governor of Plymouth, the New England Memorial, Governor 
Dudley's Report, Johnson's, and " America Painted to the 
Life, a True History" (London, 1658), the Relations of Hig- 
ginson, Wood, Lechford, Joscelyn, the Reports of Munson, 
Underbill, Gardiner, &c., with the writings of " founders " 
such as Clark, Gorges, Roger Williams, &c., and for later 
facts referring to Hubbard, Mather, Church, Miles, Neale, 
and others, Mrs. Robinson eliminated from these and other 
authentic sources the essential facts, and moulded them into 
a most significant and lucid narrative — the more so from 
being the work of a mind trained in the older civilization of 
Europe. " I look upon the early days of New England," she 
naively remarks, " with love certainly — but as a German." 
Comparatively impartial as she is, even in this primitive 
record we find indications of the prejudice which subsequent 
events fostered into a habit, and almost a mania, in " the 
mother country." " In the Revolutionary period," she writes, 
" S. A. Peters, a degenerate son of Coimecticut, published a 
' General History' of that State (London, 1781) — a mesh of 
lies, and deformed with enormous slander. Nothing could be 
more characteristic of the feeling at that time prevalent in 
England toward America, than the fact that this contempti- 
ble and slanderous work survived, the following year, in a 
second edition." 



330 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

We cannot, perhaps, more appropriately close this cursory 
notice of German writei's on America, than by referring to 
two lectm-es by Dr. Philip Schaff, whose fame as a Church 
historian, and labors as a theological professor at Mercers- 
burg, Pennsylvania, give special interest and authority to his 
views. When Dr. Schaff revisited his native country, in 
1854, he gave, at Berlin, two discourses, part of a series by 
eminent scholars. Carl Ritter, and other illustrious friends, 
advised their publication ; and this is the origin of his unpre- 
tending but comprehensive " Sketch of the Political, Social, 
and Keligious Character of the United States of North 
America." It was translated from the German, and pub- 
lished in New York in 1855. The latter branch of the sub- 
ject naturally occupies the largest space ; and it is in relation 
to Gei'man emigration and the Evangelical Church that he 
chiefly discusses the condition and prospects of his adoj^ted 
country. In view of the foct that, the very year of his visit 
to his fatherland, the emigration of his countrymen to the 
port of New York alone, amounted to more than one hundred 
and seventy-nine thousand, he descants upon the privileges, 
needs, dangers, and destinies involved in this vast experiment, 
with the knowledge of a good observer and the conscience 
of a Christian scholar. He laments the evil attending so 
large a proportion of ignorant and irreligious emigres, and 
the low condition of the German press in America ; but, on 
the other hand, anticipates the happiest results from the coali- 
tion of the American and Teutonic mind. " With the one," 
he observes, " everything runs into theory, and, indeed, so 
radically, that they are oftentimes in danger of losing all they 
aim at ; with the other, everything runs into practice, and it 
is quite possible that many of the best and worst German 
ideas will yet attain, in practical America, a much greater 
importance than in the land of their birth, and first become 
flesh and blood on the other side of the ocean, like certain 
plants, which need transplanting to a foreign soil in order to 
bear fruit and flowers." He describes with candor the promi- 
nent traits of om- covmtry and people. The latter, he says, 



NORTHEKN EUKOPEAN- WKITEES. 331 

" are restlessness and agitation personified : even when seat- 
ed, they push themselves to and fro in their rocking chairs, 
and live in a state of perpetual excitement in their business, 
their politics, and their religion. They are excellently char- 
acterized by the expressions ' help yourself ' and ' go ahead,' 
which are never out of their mouths." " The grandest des- 
tiny is evidently reserved for such a people. We can and 
must, it is true, find fault with many things in them and 
their institutions — slavery, the lust of conquest, the worship 
of mammon, the rage for speculation, political and religious 
fanaticism and party spirit, boundless temerity, boasting, and 
quackery ; but we must not overlook the healthy vital ener- 
gies that continually react against these diseases — the moral, 
yea, Puritanical earnestness of the American character, its 
patriotism and noble love of liberty in connection with deep- 
rooted reverence for the law of God and authority, its clear, 
practical imderstanding, its inclination for improvement in 
every sphere, its fresh enthusiasm for great plans and schemes 
of moral refoi'm, and its willingness to make sacrifices for the 
promotion of God's kingdom and every good work. They 
wrestle with the most colossal projects. The deepest mean- 
ing and aim of their political institutions are to actualize the 
idea of universal sovereignty, the education of every individ- 
ual. They wish to make culture, which in Europe is every- 
where aristocratic and confined to a comparatively small por- 
tion of society, the common property of the people, and train 
up, if possible, every youth as a gentleman, and every girl as 
a lady ; and in the six States of New England, at least, they 
have attained this object in a higher degree than any country 
in the Old World, England and Scotland not excepted. 
There are respectable men, professedly of the highest cul- 
ture, especially in despotic Austria, who have a real antipa- 
thy to America, speak of it with the greatest contempt or 
indignation, and see in it nothing but a grand bedlam, a ren- 
dezvous of European scamps and vagabonds. Such notions it 
is unnecessary to refute. Materialism, the race for earthly 
gain, and pleasure, find unquestionably rare encouragement in 



332 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

the inexhaustible physical resources of the country ; but it 
has a strong and wholesome counterpoise in the zeal for lib- 
eral education, the enthusiastic spirit of philanthropy, the 
munificent liberality of the people, and, above all, in Chris- 
tianity. Radicalism finds in republican America free play for 
its wild, wanton revellings, and its reckless efforts to uproot 
all that is established. But there is unquestionably in the 
Anglo-Saxon race a strong conseiTatism and deeply-rooted 
reverence for the Divine law and order ; and, even in the 
midst of the storms of political agitation, it listens ever and 
anon to the voice of reason and sober reflection. Despotism 
and abuse of the power of government make revolution ; 
while moderate constitutional liberalism forms the safest bar- 
rier against it : radicalism, therefore, can never have such a 
meaning and do so much harm in England and America, as in 
coimtries where it is wantonly provoked to revolutionary re- 
action." 

Dr. Schaff sketches the size, growth, polity, social life, 
and religious tendencies and traits of America, in a few au- 
thentic statements, and expresses the highest hope and faith 
in the true progress and prosperity of the nation. " To 
those," he remarks, " who see in America only the land of 
unbridled radicalism and of the wildest fanaticism for free- 
dom, I take the liberty to put the modest question : In what 
European state would the Government have the courage to 
enact such a prohibition of the traflic in all intoxicating 
drinks, and the people to submit to it, as the Maine liquor 
law ? I am sure that in Bavaria the prohibition of beer 
would produce a 'bloody revolution." 

Education in America, and the state of literature and sci- 
ence, are ably discussed and delineated. The pi-ess there is 
fairly estimated ; and the Church, as an organization and a 
social element, analyzed with remarkable correctness as to 
facts and liberality as to feeling. The influence of German 
literature in America is duly estimated, and the character and 
tendencies of foreign immigration and native traits justly 
considered. Without being in the least bUnd to our national 



NOETHEEN EUROPEAN WRITERS. 333 

faults, Dr. Schaff has a comprehensive insight as to our na- 
tional destiny, and a Christian scholar's appreciation of our 
national duties. " The general tendency in America," he 
observes, " is to the widest possible diffusion of education ; 
but depth and thoroughness by no means go hand in hand 
with extension. A peculiar phenomenon is the great number 
of female teachers. Among these are particularly distin- 
guished the ' Yankee girls,' who know how to make their 
way successfully everywhere as teachers — as in Europe the 
governesses from French Switzerland. Domestic life in the 
United States may be desctibed as, on an average, well regu- 
lated and happy. The number of illegitimate births is per- 
haps proportionally less than in any other country. The 
American family is not characterized by so much deep good 
nature, and warm, overflowing heartiness, as the German ; 
but the element of mutual respect predominates." 

No foreign writer has more clearly perceived or em- 
phatically stated the moral and economical relation of Amer- 
ica to Europe than Professor Schaff. His long residence in 
this country, and his educational and religious labors therein, 
gave him ample opportunity to know the facts as regards 
emigration, popular literature, social life, and enterprise; 
while his European birth and associations made him equally 
familiar with the wants of the laboring, the theories of the 
thinking, and the exigencies of the political classes. " Amer- 
ica," he writes, " begins with the results of Europe's two 
thousand years' course of civilization, and has vigor, enter- 
prise, and ambition enough to put out this enoi'mous capital 
at the most profitable interest for the general good of man- 
kind. Amei'ica is the grave of all European nationalities ; 
but it is a Phoenix grave, from which they shall rise to new 
life. Either humanity has no earthly future, and everything 
is tending to destruction, or this future lies, I say not exclu- 
sively, but mainly in America, according to the victorious 
march of history, with the sun, from east to west." * 

* " America, Political, Social, and Religious," by Dr. Philip Scbaff, New 
York, C. Scribner, 1855. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 

NATIONAIi RELATIONS : VERRAZZANO ; CASTIGLIONE ; ADRIANI ; 

GRASSI ; BELTRAMI ; D'ALLESSANDRO ; CAPOBIANCO ; 

SALVATORE ABBATE E MIGLIORI ; PISANI. 

From the antiquated French of the missionary Travels, 
and the inelegant English of the uneducated and flij)pant 
writers in our vernacular, it is a vivid and pleasant change to 
read the same prolific theme discussed in the " soft bastard 
Latin" that Byron loved. Although no Italian author has 
discoursed of our country in a manner to add a standard 
work on the subject to his native literature, America is asso- 
ciated with the historical memorials of that nation, inasmuch 
as Columbus discovered the continent to which Vespucci 
gave a name, and Carlo Botta wrote the earliest European 
history * of our Revolution ; while the great tragic poet of 
Italy dedicated his " Bruto Primo," in terms of eloquent 
appreciation, to Washington ; and the leading journal of 
Turin to-day has a regular and assiduous correspondent in 
New York, who thus made clear to his countrymen the cause, 
animus., and history of the war for the Union, and whose 
able articles on the educational system and political condition 

* Botta's " History of the War of the Independence of the United States 
of America," translated by Otis, 2 vols. 8vo. in 1. 



ITALIAN TKAVELLERS. 335 

of the United States, which have appeared in the Rivista 
Contemporetiea — the ablest literary periodical in Italy — are a 
promising foretaste of the complete and well-considered work 
on our country that he is preparing for his own : a task for 
which long residence and faithful study, as well as liberal 
sympathies and culture, eminently fit him.* At the banquet 
given in New York to the ofScers of the Italian frigate Re 
Galantuorao, on the occasion of her visit to bring the equip- 
ment for the Re d'ltalia, a magnificent ship of war built in 
this country for the navy of Italy, the same writer, in re- 
sponse to a sentiment in honor of the king, aptly observed : 
" Con qual animo non pronuzieremo il nome de Vittoiuo Em- 
man uele, in questo solenne occasione, quando per la prima 
volta nella storia d'ltalia i rappresentati della marina nazion- 
ale, toccano a questi lidi e mettono piede su questo continente 
che da quasi quattro secoli un marinaio italiano scopriva e 
dava alia civilta del mondo ! " f 

Within a recent period, the despotism of Austria, and the 
reactionary and cruel vigilance of the local rulers in the penin- 
sula, which succeeded the fall of Napoleon and the conspira- 
cies and oneutes thence resulting among the Italian people, 
brought many interesting exiles of that nation to our shores. 
The establishment of the Italian opera created a new interest 
in the language of Italy — which, with her literature, were 
auspiciously initiated in New York by Lorenzo Daponte forty 
years ago ; and the popular fictions of Manzoni, Rufini, Mari- 
otti, d'Azeglio, and Guerazzi, have made the story of their 
country's wrongs and aspirations familiar to our people; while 
such political victims as Maroncelli, Garibaldi, and Foresti 
challenged the respect and won the love of those among 
whom they found a secure and congenial asylum ; and thus, 

* Professor Vincenzo Botta. 

f " With what emotions shall we not pronounce the name of Victor Emman- 
uel, on this occasion, when, for the first time in the history of Italy, the rep- 
resentatives of her national navy touch the shores and tread the continent 
which, nearly four centuries ago, an Italian mariner discovered and gave to 
the civilized world ! " 



836 AilEKICA AXD HER COMMENTATORS. 

although the least numerous class of emigres^* the Italian 
visitors became among the most prominent from their merits 
and misfortunes. To the vagabond image venders and organ 
grinders, musicians and confectioners, were thus added emi- 
nent scholars and patriots, and endeared members of society. 
Nowhere in the civilized world was the national development 
of Italy more fondly watched than here. The lecture room, 
the popular assembly, and the press in the United States, re- 
sponded to and celebrated the reforms in Sardinia, the union 
of that state with Lombardy, Tuscany, and Naples, the lib- 
eral polity of Victor Emmanuel, and the heroic statesman- 
ship of Cavour. Garibaldi has received substantial tokens 
of American sympathy ; and current literature, love of art, 
and facilities of travel, have made the land of Columbus and 
the Republic of the West intimately and mutually knoAvn 
and loved. The caf6, the studio, the lyric drama, letters, art, 
and society in our cities attest this ; f and should steam com- 
munication be established, as proposed, between Genoa and 

* Between 1820 and 1860, about 13,000 Italian emigrants reached this 
country. At present, in New York, the Italian population is estimated at 
2,000 — most of them peasants and peddlers, who earn a precarious subsist- 
ence as organ players, venders of plaster casts, &c. Colonies of them live in 
limited quarters in the most squalid part of the city — monkeys, organs, 
images, and families grotesquely huddled in the same apartment. An evening 
school for these emigres has been in successful operation for some years, and 
with good results. 

f Scanty as is the record of Italian travel in the United States, the emi- 
gration of that people being chiefly directed to South American cities, where, 
as at Montevideo, they have large communities, the Spanish is still more 
meagre, and contrasts in this respect with the prominence of that race in the 
chronicle of maritime enterprise and exploration centuries since. Among the 
few books of Spanish travel of recent origin, are the following : 1. " Viage 
a los Estados-Unidos del Norte de America," por Don Lorenzo dc Zavala, 
Paris, 1834, 1 vol. 8vo., pp. 374. The author was, at one time, Minister from 
Mexico to Franco. Ilis book is a slight affair. — 2. " Cinco Moses en los Es- 
tados-Unidos de la America del Norte desde el 20 de Abril cl 23 Setiembre, 
1835, Diario dc Viage de D. Ramon dc la Sagra, Director del Jardin Botanico 
de la Habana, cc," Paris, 1836, 1 vol. 8vo., pp. 43Y. Le Sagra has pubHshed 
an important book about Cuba, been concerned in Spanish politics, and is 
well considered as a man of science ; but his book, says an able critic, is not 
much better than Zavala's. 



ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 337 

New York, the emigration will improve. When the war for 
the Union commenced, many Italian citizens volimteered, and 
some have acquired honor in the field ; while not a few can 
find in the following anecdote, which recently appeared in a 
popular daily journal, a parallel to their own recent experi- 
ence : 

" Ten or twelve years ago an Italian emigrated from Northern 
Italy, and, after various wanderings, pitched his tent at Jackson, 
Mississippi. He prospered in business, increased and multiplied. He 
also managed to build two comfortable little houses, and altogether 
was getting on quite well in the world. At the time the war broke 
out he was North on business; and finding, from his well-known 
Union sentiments, that it would be dangerous to return, he took 
what money he had with him, and, accompanied by his wife, sailed 
for Europe, while his sons entered the Union army. 

" In the beautiful Val d'Ossola, not far from the town of Domo 
d'Ossola, on the great thoroughftire where the Simplon road, issu- 
ing from the Alps, and but just escaped from the rocky frowns 
of the gorge of Gondo, passes amid fringes of olive groves to the 
great white ' Arch of Peace ' and the brilliant city of Milan, is located 
one of those unpretending inns or locandas which abound in Italy — 
a low, rambling house, half hid in trellised vines, and prefaced as to 
doorway by several rude stone tables, at which transient guests may 
sit and sip the country wine. 

" A few months ago, two American pedestrians stopped at this place 
and ordered wine, and, while sipping it, were accosted in tolerable 
English by the landlord, who wanted to know their views about the 
war, and particularly when the State of Mississippi would be re- 
gained for the Union. The question, coming from such a source, led 
to a conversation, during which it was revealed that the worthy inn- 
keeper was none other than the Italian emigrant and the house- 
owner in the town of Jackson, 

" At that time there was no early prospect of the taking of the 
capital of Mississippi ; but, now that General Sherman is in that very 
vicinity, if not in the city itself, there will probably be good news for 
the innkeeper of the Simplon road. And this is but one instance out 
of many, in which each of even the minor phases of the war strikes 
directly at some personal interest or some chord of affection in indi- 
viduals in the most remote corners of the continent of Europe." 

A curious waif that gives us tokens of early exploration, 
is what remains of the journal of the old Italian navigator 
15 



338 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS. 

Verrazzano — a relic still preserved among the treasures of the 
public library at Florence. In a summer sail down the bay 
of New York, or an excursion in and around the harbor of 
Newport, R. I., we easily recognize the local features thus 
noted by Verrazzano ; but to which scene they apply, seems 
to have been doubtful to nearly all the commentators upon 
this ancient mariner ; although to us the former place seems 
obviously intended. " The mouth of the haven," he writes, 
" lieth open to the south, half a league broad, and being 
entered within it, it stretcheth twelve leagues, and waxeth 
broader and broader, and maketh a gulf about twenty 
leagues in compass, wherein are five small islands very fruit- 
ful and pleasant, and full of hie and broad trees, among the 
which islands any great navie may ride itself." So New 
York Bay struck the eyes of Verrazzano in 1524, and so he 
described it in a letter to the king of France, wherein he also 
speaks of the " great store of slate for houses," the abundant 
wild grapevines, the mullets in the waters, and the " okes, 
cipresses, and chestnuts " of the islands. 

There is something that excites the imagination into a 
more objective view of familiar things, when they are de- 
scribed and commented on in a foreign tongue ; and certain 
peculiarities of American life and scenery thus derive a fresh 
aspect from the vivacious pictures and observation of French 
writers. We seem to catch glimpses of our country from 
their point of view, and to realize the salient diversities of 
race and customs, as we never do when discussed in our ver- 
nacular. A similar though equally characteristic effect is pro- 
duced by reading even hackneyed accoimts of men and things 
in America when couched in Italian. Accordingly, though 
we find little original information in the " Viaggio negli Stati 
Uniti dell' America Settentrionale, fatto negli anni 1785, '6, 
e '7, da Luigi Castiglione," to one who has visited Italy 
there is a charm in the record of a " Patrizio Milanese." His 
book was printed in Milan, 1790. He paid especial attention 
to those vegetable products of the New "World which are 
valuable as commodities and useful in domestic economy. 



ITALIAN TKAVELLEES. 339 

He observed with the eye of a naturalist. Climate, sects, 
food, edifices, and local history occupied his mind ; and when 
we remember the almost incredible ignorance prevalent even 
among educated Italians, within a few years, in regard to the 
United States, we cannot but think that Castiglione's copious 
and generally accurate narrative must have been valuable and 
, interesting to such of his countrymen as desired information, 
seventy years ago, about America. To a reader here and 
now, however, the work has but a limited significance, the 
writer's experience being so identical with that of many bet- 
ter-known authors. It is curious, however, in this, as in 
other instances, to note the national tendency in the line of 
obsei'vation adopted. Castiglione says more about architec- 
ture than manners, meagre as that branch of the fine arts 
was in our land at the time of his visit. He is much struck 
with Long Wharf on arriving at Boston : " II Gran Molo per 
cui si discenda a terra, e uno da piu magnifici degli Stati 
Uniti ; e si dice avere un mezzo miglia di limghezza." He 
specifies " 1' isola di Noddle " in describing the harbor. The 
shingles which then covered most of the roofs proved a nov- 
elty to him ; and a salt-fish dinner, with shellbarks and cider, 
he found so indigestible, that it made quite an impression 
both upon his stomach and brain. Alive to the charm of 
great memories, as lending dignity to cities, he recalls with 
delight the fact that Franklin, Hancock, Adams, and other 
patriots, were born in Boston ; the republican equality of 
which community is to him a memorable fact, as is the sight / 
of the statue of Pitt in New York, and the simultaneous ^ 
advertisement of a negro and a horse to be sold at auction 
there. As the Signore frequently travelled on horseback, he 
was exposed to the caprices of our temperature, and vividly 
realized the extremes of the climate. He alludes to his visit 
at Mount Vernon in the same terms with which all intelligent 
foreigners dwell upon the pri\dlege of a personal acquaint- 
ance with the spotless patriot, whose recent career was then 
the moral marvel of the age. There is so much in this con- 
temporary testimony that agrees with and anticipates the ver- 



340 AMEKICA AND HKR COMMENTATORS. 

diet of history, that we never can read the spontaneous 
expression thereof, from so many and such various sources, 
without a fresh emotion of love and honor, inspired not less 
by the blessing such a character and career have proved to 
humanity, than by our own national preeminence. Never was 
there such identity of sentiment in so many different lan- 
guges, in regard to the same human being. " Ivi," wi'ites 
Castiglione of his visit to Moimt Vernon, " passai quattro 
giorni favorito del Generale "Washington colla maggiore ospi- 
talita. II Generale ha cerca cinquante setti amii, e grande 
di statura, di robusta complessione, di aspetto maestoso e 
piacevole, e benche incallito nel servizio militare, sembra 
ancora di eta non avanzata. Voglia il Cielo, che, vivendo molti 
anni, seiwa, per lungo tempo, d'esempio nella virtu e nella 
industria a suoi concittadini, come servi d'esempio all' Eu- 
ropa, nelle vittoric che consacrarono il sou nome ad un' eterna 
fame." 

In 1790, Count Adriani, of Milan, brought an ode from 
Alfieri to Washington, and afterward wrote an abusive book 
about America, of which the General wrote to Humphrey, it 
is " an insult to the inhabitants of a country where he re- 
ceived more attention and civility than he seemed to merit." 

Whoever visited the Roman Catholic convent at George- 
town, twenty years ago, chatted with the jiriests, and per- 
haps tasted the old Malaga with Avhich they used to beguile 
their guests, must, especially if fresh from Washington soci- 
ety, have experienced a curious kind of old-world sensation, 
inspired by the contrast between this gjimpse of the monas- 
tic life of Europe and the vivacious, hopeful, experimental 
tone of American society. It is easy, with these impressions, 
to imagine what kind of a report of our country, its proS' 
pects, manners, and tendencies, an isolated jDriest of such an 
establishment would be likely to prepare. Its main character 
would, of course, be deprecatory of the religious freedom 
of the land ; its social comments would naturally be foimded 
on convent gossip and hear-say evidence ; and it would be 
natural to expect traces of that waggery with which our 



ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 341 

quick-witted people, when provoked by the perversity or 
amused by the credulity of their foreign visitors, are apt to 
quiz these seekers " of knowledge under difficulties ; " as 
when a complacently curious lady scribe was made to believe 
the water carts used to lay the summer diist in our jSTorthern 
cities, sprinkled the streets thrice daily with vinegar, to obvi- 
ate infection ; or when the cockney accepted the statement 
that a rose bug was a flea, everything, from hotels to momi- 
tains and insects, being on a large scale in America. 

Accordingly, the reader of a now rare pamphlet, written 
by a former inmate of the Georgetown convent, will not be 
disappointed in any of these anticipations. Originally pub- 
lished in Rome, it was reprinted at Milan in 1819, and is en- 
titled " Notizie Varie sullo stato presente della Repiiblica 
degli Stati Uniti dell' America Settentrionale da Padre Gio- 
vanni Grassi deUa compagnia de Gesu." This Jesuit writer 
is of the urbane class. Take away the priestly cmimus^ and 
there is nothing consciously \mcandid in his account, narrow 
and superficial as it is. The marvellous growth of the coun- 
try in population and resources is fairly indicated, and some 
agricultural information given. He declares " the mass of 
the people are better provided with food " than elsewhere in 
the world, but are not as well off" as regards drink, wine 
being very dear and beer quite rare. The seventh part of 
the population, he says, are negroes, and are kindly treated. 
He is severe on " the passion for elegant preacliing," on the 
extravagance in dress, on the prevalence of duels and dan- 
cing, on the superficial education, and the practice of gam- 
bling. The two last defects come with an ill grace from an 
Italian, the bane of whose nation they have been for ages. 
Padre Grassi must have been hoaxed by some report of the 
Connecticut Blue Laws, for he speaks of the superstitious 
observance of the Sabbath as constituting religion in the view 
of American Protestants, who " saddle a horse the day be- 
fore Sunday to go to church on, and have no beer made on 
Saturday, lest it should work the next day." He gravely 
declares that cider is substituted for wine at the communion 



342 AMERICA AJSTD HEK COSIMENTATOES 

service, from motives of economy. He is not at all compli- 
mentary to the people of the Eastern States, of whom he 
probably heard a Southern report. " Among the inhabitants 
of the United States," he writes, " those of New England 
are regarded as thorough knaves, and are called Yankis." 
He mentions, as ordinary infractions of good breeding, that 
people in America " pare the nails and comb the head in com- 
pany" (in Italy the latter is a street occupation), and "sit 
with their feet braced on a wall or a chair." He inveighs 
agauist the " display of piety," and indulges in some rather 
coarse jokes and some very free caricatures, that suggest 
rather the licentious than the disciplined side of monastic 
life ; yet, withal, there is something kindly in the spirit as 
there is absurd in the prejudices of Father Grassi, Avhose 
summing up, however, is rather discouraging : " The unre- 
strained freedom which obtains, the drunkenness which 
abounds, the rabble of adventurers, the great number of 
negro slaves, the almost infinite variety of sects, and the 
little real religion that is met with, the incredible number of 
novels that are read, and the insatiable eagerness for gain, 
are, hideed, circumstances that would hardly give reason to 
expect much in point of manners. At first view, however, 
one is not aware of the depravity of this country, because it 
is hidden, for a time, under the veil of an engaging ex- 
terior." 

J. C. Beltrami, previously a judge of a royal court in the 
kingdom of Italy, in his " Pilgrimage in Europe and Amer- 
ica," published in London in 1828, gives his impressions of 
the West with much vividness. He had much to say of the 
aborigines, and expatiates upon the natural history and 
scenery of the region he visited with intelligence and enthu- 
siasm. Of the latter he writes, " one wants the pencil of 
Claude and the pen of Delille to describe it." 

Twenty years ago, there resided in Boston a Sicilian refu- 
gee, still affectionately remembered. He celebrated in grace- 
ful verse the solemn beauty of Mount Auburn,* and was 

* " Monte Auburno : Poemetto da Pietro d'Alessandro." 



ITALIAJiT TKAVELLEKS. 343 

esteemed by many of our scholars and citizens for hia genial 
disposition and refined mind. His first impressions of New 
England manners were essentially modified when time and 
opportunity had secured him friends ; biit his early letters 
are interesting because so natural ; and they express, not 
inadequately, the feelings of a sensitive and honest Italian, 
while yet a stranger in the " land of liberty." They indi- 
rectly, also, bring the sentiment of the two countries, before 
the days of Italian imity, into suggestive contrast. Not 
intended for publication, they are all the more candid on that 
account. I obtained permission to translate them, and they 
are now quoted as a faithful local sketch of personal experi- 
ence of an educated Sicilian patriot in the American Athens : 

" Boston, 183-. 

" ' I was reading Yorick and Didimo * on the 26th of December, 
the very day preceding your departure ; and I wept for you, for 
Didimo, and myself, earnestly wishing, at the moment, that our coun- 
trymen would yield at least the tribute of a tear to the memory of 
Foscolo, recalling his sublime mind and the history of those lofty 
but hopeless feelings which drove him a wanderer, out of Italy, to 
find repose only in the grave.' 

" I often ponder ui)on these few words written by you on the 
blank leaf of my Didimo. I can never read them unmoved, for they 
awaken a sad emotion in my heart, as if they were the last accents I 
am destined to hear from your lips. Never have I so vividly felt the 
absence of your voice, your presence, and your counsel, as now that, 
di'iven by my hapless fortune to a distant land, I have no one either 
to compassionate or cheer me, nor any with whom to share my joy 
or sorrows. Believe me, Eugenio, the love of country and friends 
was never so ardent in my bosom as now that I am deprived of 
them ; and time, instead of healing, seems rather to irritate the 
wound which preys so deeply upon my heart. I often wrote you 
while on the Atlantic, describing the various incidents of our voyage, 
the dangers we encountered, and the fearful and sweet sensations I 
alternately experienced, as the sea lashed itself into a tempest, or 
reposed beneath the mild effulgence of a tranquil night. But, upon 
reviewing those letters, I find they breathe too melancholy a strain, 
and are quite too redolent of my wayward humor, even for a dear 

* The name assumed by Foscolo as translator of Sterne's " Sentimental 
Journey." 



344 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

friend's ]^rusal ; and, besides reaching you too late, tliey could only 
f?erve to grieve both yourself and my poor mother. But at length I 
have arrived at a place whence I can give you some definite account 
of my welfare. 

" On the night of the 15th of March, notwithstanding the con- 
trary wind which had beat us about here and there for several suc- 
cessive days, we cast anchor in Boston harbor. That night was long 
and wearisome to me. Obliged to remain on board until dawn, I 
passed it like many others during the passage, unable to sleep. The 
weariness and anxiety consequent upon a long sea voyage, were at 
length over. Indeed, the moment I caught the first glimpse of land, 
they were forgotten. Yet I could scarcely persuade myself that I 
had reached America. The remembrance of the last few months of 
excitement and grief, passed in that dear and distant country which, 
perhaps, I am never destined again to behold, came over me anew, 
and, contrasting with my present situation, awoke in my mind the 
most painful sense of uncertainty. I felt doubtful of everything, 
even of my own existence. I experienced, at that moment, an utter 
want of courage. The flattering hopes which had brightened the 
gloomiest hours of my voyage, all at once abandoned me. My ima- 
gination no longer pictured scenes of promise. I looked within and 
around, and beheld only the naked reality of things. I realized only 
the sad certainty, that a new life was before me. I revolved the 
various necessities of my situation : the importance of immediately 
forming new acquaintances — the uncertainty how I should be re- 
ceived by the few to whom I had brought introductions — my own 
natural aversion to strangers — and a thousand other anxious thoughts, 
which made me long for day as tlie signal of relief from their vexa- 
tion. At length the morning dawned ; but it was obscured by a 
damp fog and heavy fall of snow. All around wore a gloomy and 
cheerless aspect. In a few moments, the captain came to greet me 
as usual, but with more than wonted urbanity. He informed me I 
was now at liberty, and, whenever I pleased, the boat should con- 
vey me to the nearest wharf. I did not wait for him to repeat the 
summons, but, throwing off my sea dress, assumed another ; and, 
descending the ship's side, soon touched the shore so long and 
ardently desired. It is true, I then felt intensely what it is to be 
alone. Yet not less sincere was my gratitude to that invisible and 
benignant Being, who had guided and preserved me through so many 
dangers. I landed with tearful eyes ; and, although no friend, with 
beating heart, was there to welcome me, I stooped reverently to kiss 
the land sacred to liberty, and felt then for the first time that I, too, 
was a man. 



ITALIAN TRAVELLEES. 34:5 

"17?/! April. 

" I have now passed several days in strolling through the streets 
of this city, amusing myself with the sight of so many objects of 
novelty and interest. I find the place rather pretty than otherwise ; 
much more so, indeed, than I had imagined. The buildings, how- 
ever, aue in a style so peculiar, as to suggest the idea that the principles 
of architecture are here entirely unknown, or purposely disregarded. 
And then, the people all seem in such a hurry ! — ladies and gentlemen, 
boys and girls, wliite and black, horses, hacks, wagons, and omnibuses 
hastening so furiously along the streets, that, unless you are on your 
guard, there is no little danger of awkward rencontres. How de- 
lightful to my sea- worn sight, this spectacle of animated life ! How 
gladly would I, too, have assumed a part in the busy scenes in which 
the multitude about me werp engaged ! "With what delight should I 
have rejoiced with them, in anticipating the comforts and the greet- 
ings of a home ! But, situated as I was during these first days suc- 
ceeding my arrival, the scenes around me served but to make me 
realize anew my loneliness ; and, but for the gratification aftbrded 
my curiosity, I would have willingly remained immured in tlie little 
chamber of my hotel. I am, however, anxiously seeking employ- 
ment ; but, as yet, my efforts have been unsuccessful. My letters of 
introduction I do not think will be of much service to me, except the 
one proposing a credit in my favor, from our mutual friend, which 
has been duly honored by his correspondents. These gentlemen, like 
many others here, have expressed great pleasure in seeing me. They 
have introduced me to such individuals as I have chanced to meet in 
their company, either at the counting house, or in the streets. They 
have also made innumerable prolfers of assistance. In' short, they 
have received me kindly, and yet with a curious species of kindness, 
certainly not Italian ; and, as yet, I know not if I can properly 
characterize it as American. Polite or not, however, they certainly 
seem to aim first to satisfy their curiosity ; for, after having beset 
one with a thousand questions — many more, indeed, than it is agree- 
able to answer — they make no scruple of waiving all ceremony, and 
leaving you very abruptly, without even a hasty addio. This has 
occurred to me very often, though I cannot say invariably. The 
figure which I have presented more than once, on such occasions, I 
am sure must have been ridiculous. Taken by surprise at the abrupt 
termination of the interview, I have stood immovable and half mor- 
tified, following with my eyes the receding form of my friend, walk- 
ing so coolly off, intent upon his own affiiirs. 

" Another kind of courtesy, which some, perhaps, might ascribe 
to frankness, but which certainly wears the appearance of perfect 

15* 



346 AMEEICA AlfD HER COMMENTATORS. 

indifference, is their habit of inviting one to their houses and tables, 
in terms so very vague and general, that I assure you, during the 
month I have been here, it has been frequently impossible for me to 
make up my mind to accept many of the civilities offered me. I 
question, however, whether there will be frequent occasion for scru- 
ples of this kind, as I apprehend there is little danger of such courte- 
sies being repeated : yet the good people seem in earnest, and to 
tender their hospitalities with all their hearts. I am inclined to think 
they do. But, to tell the truth, I feel no small degree of delicacy in 
accepting such courtesies, because the experience I daily acquire of 
their customs and manner of thinking, forces upon my mind the con- 
viction, that the reputation they have for egotism, especially as re- 
gards foreigners, is not without foundation. 

" Boston people may be ranked among that large class who con- 
tent themselves with respecting all who respect them, and refrain 
scrupulously from doing the slightest injury to all who are equally 
harmless. They are, however, exceedingly wary of foreigners, and 
not, perhaps, without much reason ; since many who have sojourned 
among them have shown themselves both ignorant and unprincipled, 
and, besides leaving a bad impression of their individual characters, 
have also induced the most unfavorable opinions of the countries 
whence- they came. In Italy, the very name of stranger is a pass- 
port to civility and kindness. Here, while you require no sealed and 
signed document from any of their European majesties to insure free 
communication and travel, you can scarcely ask the slightest civility, 
or approach one of your kind, without exciting a certain degree of 
suspicion ; and your disadvantage is still enhanced, if, in addition to 
the name of foreigner — which, like original sin, is deemed a common 
taint — you also bring the still less pardonable sin of poverty. The 
necessity of earning a livelihood, however honestly, is certainly the 
worst recommendation with which to enter a foreign country ; nor 
is it less so in the New "World, since here, as well as elsewhere, a 
well-filled purse, and the disposition liberally to dispense its con- 
tents, will insure the heartiest welcome. The Americans, too, being 
universally intent upon gain, are naturally indisposed to encourage 
new competitors, and their time is too completely absorbed in busi- 
ness to allow of their devoting many moments to the interests of for- 
eigners. Their lives are entirely spent in striving after new accumu- 
lations ; and the whole glory of their existence is reduced to the 
miserable vanity of having it said, after their death, that they have 
left a considerable estate ; and this short-lived renown is awarded 
according to the greater or less heritage bequeathed. This is not 
only the course of the father, but of the children ; for they, being 



ITALIAN TKAVELLEKS. 347 

by law entitled to an equal portion of their father's property, are 
obliged to follow in his footsteps, in order to obtain their shares of 
this same glory : that the question, ' How much has he left ? ' may 
be answered as much to their credit as it was to that of their sire. 
Thus the young and the old, those barely possessing a competence 
and those rolling ia wealth, with equal zeal bend all their energies to 
the common end. Intent upon gain and traffic, they are too absorbed 
to think of any but themselves. They calculate, with watch in hand, 
the minutes and seconds as they pass, and seem naturally averse to 
any conversation of which trade and speculation are not the subject. 
Hence results, as a natural consequence, the prevailing mediocrity of 
ideas and feelings, derived from the uniform system of education and 
manner of thinking, as well as the great similarity of interests. 
Hence, too, the equal tenor of life, and the absence of great vices, as 
well as of great virtues; hence the social calmness and universal 
prosperity, and hence the apparent insensibility to the appeal of mis- 
fortune, resulting from the want of exercise of feelings of ready sym- 
pathy and compassion incident to such a social condition. 

" You may infer, from what I have said, the condition of the 
stranger in the midst of such a community — of him of whom it may 
be said with truth, that he interests no one. For my part, I cannot 
be too grateful for the generosity of my relatives : without it, God 
knows what, by this time, would have become of your wretched 
friend. Still, I am anxious about the future — the more so since I 
have discovered that political misfortunes, which have driven into 
exile so many of our countrymen, furnish no claim to the sympathies 
of these republicans. Many of those with whom I am already ac- 
quainted are so foolishly proud of their political privileges, that, 
instead of pitying, you would fancy they intended to ridicule the less 
favored condition of other lands. I beg you, however, to consider 
what I have said on this subject as hastily inferred, and not dog- 
matically affirmed. I may be quite mistaken ; and, indeed, to pretend 
to give a correct idea of a country entirely new to me, after only a 
month's residence, especially where the aspect of things differs so 
essentially from what I have been accustomed to, would, I am well 
aware, appear very absurd. Yet there is a very just proverb which 
says, that from the dawn we may augur the day ; and if it be true, I 
regret to say that the dawn before me seems most unpromising. 
Would that a bright and cheerful sun would arise to dispel the mists 
of doubt, and throw gladness upon the heart of your devoted 
friend ! 



348 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

" 28th April. 

" Often, during my voyage, I promised myself great delight, upon 
my arrival, in visiting tlie plains of Cambridge, and the heights of 
Dorchester and Bunker HUl, renowned as the early scenes of the 
American war. As I read Botta's ' History,' my imagination often 
transported me to those spots which he so vividly pictured. I longed 
to find myself upon the hallowed ground, to render my tribute of 
grateful admiration to the memory of those noble men who there 
perished fighting for the liberty of their country. The iuclement 
season, however, has not yet allowed me to realize my anticipations. 
"We are at the end of April, and yet the spring seems scarcely to 
have commenced. 

" The aspect of the environs of Boston is most desolate. The 
earth is stdl buried under the snow ; the streets are covered with 
ice, here and there broken by the constant travelling, which renders 
them almost impassable. In addition, there prevails here, at this 
season, a most disagreeable wind. It blows from the east, and is so 
exceedingly chilly and penetrating, that it not only destroys one's com- 
fort, but undermines the health. It seems to freeze my very soul, 
and effectually drives away all disposition for romance. I have been, 
therefore, constrained to remain in town, and rest satisfied with a 
distant view of the environs, until the coming of a more genial 
season. 

" Although the city is scarcely less gloomy than the country, it 
is still some amusement for the stranger to note the pedestrians. On 
both sides of the principal street you may behold men of all sorts 
and sizes, muffled up to their eyes in cloaks, high-collared surtouts, 
or quUted wu'appers, fur caps and gloves, woollen capes, heavy boots 
and heavier overshoes ; and, although thus burdened with garments — 
weightier far than the leaden cloaks of Dante's hypocrites — they con- 
trive to shuffle along at the usual rapid rate, for they are business 
men. Now and then the light figure of a dandy flits by, arrayed in 
raiment quite too light for the weather, and looking as blue as win- 
ter and misery can make him. And then the women — ladies, I 
mean, God bless them ! women, there are none here — all in their 
gala dresses, all satin and muslin, light feathered bonnets, silk stock- 
ings and daiicing shoes, with a bit of fur round their necks, or the 
skirt of their pelisses, to whi'^jycr of comfort. Thus attired, they glide 
over the ice with a calm iudifTerence worthy of heroines, stopping 
occasionally to purchase blonde lace or cough candy, and then mov- 
ing on in the very face of the April breeze I have described to you. 

" To speak seriously, I had thought to find in this country, if not 
the original, at least the remains of ancient simplicity. I flattered 



ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 349 

myself that I should see, among the descendants of those Puritan 
colonists, who were 'wise and modest In all their wishes,' a com- 
plete absence of pretension. But it is not so. The habits which 
prevail, and especially those relating to dress, are most extravagant. 
In the houses, in the streets, at every hour of the day, you see dis- 
played — I say not with how much taste— the same dresses which our 
female nobility, who are as extravagant as any countesses in the 
United Kingdom, are accustomed to wear only at soirees^ weddings, 
or the opera. It is much the same with our sex. I will not now 
pretend to account for these extravagant habits, although I fancy I 
have divined the reason. Yet I must believe that, in this republic, 
female dress is the great item of domestic expense. The materiel, 
being imported from abroad, is very dear. Indeed, the price of 
everything is exorbitant. As the saying is with us, those who have 
not a house pay for every sigh ; and here they cost not less than 
half a dollar, or seventy-five cents each. And this adds another to 
the disadvantages of the stranger, especially if, like myself, he has 
indulged the idea that, in this young country, dress was not thought 
to make the man in the same degree as elsewhere, and finds that, 
with all their vaunted progress, the Americans have not gone an 
iota beyond their predecessors. in establishing a just standard of esti- 
mating mankind ; and are quite as prone to base their judgments 
upon appearance rather than character. Kor can you practi- 
cally oppose such customs either with your philosophy or indiffer- 
ence, since the individual who avails himself of the privileges of 
social life is bound, as far as he can without self-debasement, to con- 
form to popular prejudices ; and, indeed, it seems to me that here 
appearances are peculiarly imposing. Wherever you tm-n, you be- 
hold the names of every description of dealer, from the poor huck- 
ster to the rich merchant, blazoned upon signs in gilt letters, as if to 
impress the stranger with the idea that he had entered the most 
prosperous country of the earth. 

" But I will speak to you of the more noteworthy objects around 
me, which, however, are not numerous. ISTotwithstanding the un- 
pleasant season, I haye visited Cambridge, with the situation of 
which I have been much pleased. The village is about three miles 
and a half from Boston ; and, in its centre, you find the most ancient 
and best-eudowed seat of learning existing in the United States. It 
is called Harvard University, and the establishment consists of sev- 
eral buildings, containing lodging and recitation rooms, built of brick, 
with one exception, all in a simple style, which struck me as happily 
accordant with the character (if the institution. The law and theo- 
logical schools constitute a part of the University. But what par- 



350 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. 

ticularly pleased me was the library, which, from what I hear, is the 
best in the country, and, in truth, is excellent. Among other works, 
there is quite a collection of Italian books ; and many of the edi- 
tions are beautiful, and very neatly bound. You cannot imagine how 
much I enjoyed the sight of so many of our beloved authors. Amid 
the legacies of these illustrious dead, I, for the moment, forgot all my 
private griefs and anxiety. I seemed no longer to be among stran- 
gers, for in every one of those books I recognized an honored and 
dear friend of my youth : so long unseen, and so unexpectedly en- 
countered, they seemed to transport me to a new world. In truth, 
this was the first moment that I felt really encouraged. Who knows, 
I asked myself, but these ancient allies of mine will introduce me to 
their friends of the New* "World ? — and then Yorick's unfortunate 
adventure with the police of Paris occurred to me. 

" Of the University, the method of instruction pursued, and the 
progress it has made, I will tell you when I am better informed. It 
grieves me, at present, that I cannot go every day to Cambridge. 
The season being so bad, it is necessary to ride thither. Then, there 
is my dinner. So that, by a broad calculation (you see how I have 
already begun to calculate), the pleasure of six hours' reading would 
daily make me minus a dollar. ' But,' you ask, ' cannot you dine 
Tipon your return in the evening ? ' Yes, if they would let me ! But 
here, even at the hotels, it is not the custom to order your dinner 
when you please. They treat us quite like friars ; and it is neces- 
sary, if you would not lose your dinner, to be at the table punctually 
at the stroke of two ; otherwise — but, Holy Virgin ! it is the dinner 
bell. "Wait only a moment, for I must make haste to be in time for 
the roast beef. In three minutes (all that is required here) I will 
return, and continue my letter. 

" I went, the other day, with one of our countrymen, to visit the 
Athenaeum, which is the only literary establishment in the city. It 
is supported by the savans and aristocracy of Boston. It has a 
library composed chiefly of donations of books, among which are 
many of the principal works published in Europe and America, sev- 
eral literary and scientific journals, and numerous gazettes. Thei"^ 
are also rooms containing casts and a few marble statues, a small col- 
lection of medallions, and two apartments for the study of architec- 
ture and drawing, but destitute both of masters and pupils, and one 
large haU, on the lower floor, used as a reading room. The share- 
holders and their friends are only admitted to the Athena3um. These 
are, for the most part, gentlemen of leisure or idle people^ according 
to the complimentary title bestowed on them by their fellow citizens ; 
and they go, as their taste may be, to occupy their time in the read- 



ITALIAN TKAVELLEKS. 351 

ing room, which is open from early morning till nine at night. In 
this room, there is a rule inscribed exj^ressly prohibiting conversa- 
tion ; and you see, to far more advantage than in our libraries, so 
many living statues in every variety of attitude, often not the most 
graceful, all with a book in hand, or intent upon a newspaper. The 
librarian, a very good sort of man, has shown himself, like many 
others, very glad to see me. He told me that, as a stranger, the 
Athenaeum would be open to me for the period of one month ; but 
that after that time, if I remained, and wished to continue my visits, 
it would be necessary for me to become a subscriber, like tlio other 
frequenters of the institution. I thanked him for his politeness, and 
have shown how sincerely I valued it, by going almost every day to 
the Athenaeum ; and as to the end of the month, I do not trouble my 
head about it, because, by that time, I hope the weather will allow 
me to walk frequently to Cambridge. What and how great are the 
advantages which result from this institution, I leave you to esti- 
mate. The Athenasum, however, now in its infancy, seems destined 
to advance greatly ; and if, one day, it should become a public estab- 
lishment, it cannot but be of lasting benefit to Boston. And truly, 
in a city like this, which I hear called the Athens of America, there 
should be, if nothing else, a rich library freely open to the people. 
Thus you see that, both in and out of town, I have not failed to find 
the means of becoming learned and illustrious. All these literary 
advantages, however, are reduced to nothing to a poor devil who is 
in the situation of being obliged to derive profit from the little he 
knows, rather than from what still remains to him to be acquired. 
And this necessity has urged me to seek an occupation at every sac- 
rifice ; and, having gone the rounds with the diploma of a young 
leUerato, the oflice which, for the moment, I can most certainly 
obtain, is that of a teacher of our language. And I have, indeed, 
one scholar, a lean doctor of medicine, to whom, as he has the merit 
of being connected with a relative who is intimate with one of the 

family of , who pays me my remittances, I give my lessons 

gratis. This has been, thus far, my greatest resource. But this gen- 
tle minister of death gives me promise of an introduction among his 
patients — of whom, as yet, I have not caught even a glimpse. How- 
ever, I am obliged to trot every day, at the expense of my poor legs, 
to the doctor's door, which is no little distance from mine. I go very 
punctually, but often only to find him asleep in his chair, and dozing 
while I read the lesson — which, moreover, I am obliged to explain 
through the medium of a French grammar. This avaricious San- 
grado piques himself not a little upon his egregious lisping of the 
French ; and to this day I have been unable to induce him to buy 



352 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

another grammar. But, somehow or other, I hope soon to send him 
on a journey to Elysium, to carry my compliments to his master 
Hippocrates. 



" May 1th. 

" I am angry with you. Five packets have arrived since I landed ; 
and every day I hurry anxiously to the post office, only to hear the 
same chilling negative to my ardent inquiry for letters. I have even 
conceived quite an antipathy to the stiflf, laconic postman, who some- 
times deigns no other reply than a cold shake of the head. Yet you 
promised to write me at the end of the first month after my em- 
barkation. How can I forgive such neglect ? And what reasonable 
excuse can you offer ? Perhaps you allege the uncertainty of my 
fate. Yet, had I gone to my last sleep in the bosom of old Neptune, 
think you a friendly letter would not have been a pleasant oflering 
to my manes ? Nay, Eugenio, you know not the comfort a few lines 
from you would bring to the heart of a poor friend. I am homesick. 
My feelings seem dead to all that surrounds me. I seem condemned 
to the constant disappointment of every cherished hope ; and, were 
I able to express all I feel, I could unfold a most pitiable story of 
mental suffering. Do you realize, Eugenio, how far I am from home, 
and all that is dear to me ? — that I am living in a weary solitude 
which I sometimes fear will drive me mad ? "With affections most 
tenderly alive, and a nature that would fain attach itself to all 
around, I find not here a single congenial being or idea upon which 
my heart can repose. A stranger to everything, I am by all regarded 
as a stranger, and read that forbidding name in the expression of all 
whom I approach. Did I carry the remorse of a criminal in my 
bosom, I could not meet the gaze of my fellow beings with less con- 
fidence. The few whom I have known thus far, are, for the most 
part, merchants or commonplace people, too much occupied in their 
own afii-iirs to relish interruption during their leisure hours. But 
when I fall in with them, they instantly tender the old salutation, 
' Glad to see you,' coupled with an invitation to their counting 
houses, where they are too busy to talk, nnd content themselves with 
proffering a chair and the newspaper. These manners result from a 
mode of life very different from that which prevails in Europe : still 
they are painfully striking to the novice, especially if he be one of 
those who know not how to support the toil and vexation of exist- 
ence, unsoothed by those cheering palliatives with which we are wont 
to sweeten the bitter cup of life. You well know that I was never 
over fond of general society, nor took much delight in the heartless 
glitter of fashionable life. But what I voluntarily avoided at home, 



ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 353 

is not a little desirable here, as a relief from the loneliness of my 
position. Yet the only house at which I can spend an evening with 

any pleasure, is that of our countryman B , who, with the true 

feeling of Italian hospitality, at once made me at home under his 
roof. I meet him, too, occasionally in my walks, and we converse 
of our country, our literature, and, most frequently, of our misfor- 
tunes. God knows how grateful I am for his sympathy, without 
which it seems as if I should have died of weariness and^ grief. Yet 
our conversations sometimes serve to renew most keenly the mem- 
ory of my sorrows — which I fain would bury in the bottom of my 
heart — and send me back to my little chamber to find more sadness 
than before, in the companionsliip of my own thoughts. That which 
renders me most anxious, is the harassing doubt which seems to 
attend my steps. I feel already that I am a burden to my relatives. 
Every day, which passes without advancing me in an occupation from 
which I can derive support, seems lost. Although I have not neg- 
lected, nor shall neglect, seeking for every honest mode of relieving 
them from this care, yet I feel a species of remorse, as if I were 
abusing their generosity ; and the bread I eat tastes bitter, when I 
reflect that the expense of my bare subsistence, even with all the 
economy I can practise, in these times, and under existing circum- 
stances, would half support the family of my afflicted mother. Thus 
my days pass, sustained only by hope and the promises of my new 
friends. Now and then, as at this moment, I write to those dear to 
me by way of solacing my bleeding heart ; but even this occupation 
is painful to me, since I can only write of my afflictions. 

''Ah, Eugenio, how aggravating is now the remembrance of all 
your kind advice ! It is true, in an important sense, that man is the 
creator of his own destinies. "With how much care and ingenuity do 
we raise the funeral pile, which is to consume our hopes and burn 
our very hearts ! It is true, indeed, that if I had reconciled myself 
to existing circumstances, and allowed to subside the first force of 
those feelings which even you, with all your natural wisdom, could 
not but confess were generous and noble ; and especially had I opened 
my eyes, and calmly looked those illusions in the face, in which so 
many of our young men, and I among the rest, so inconsiderately 
confided, it is true I should not have experienced the bitterness of 
the present. But how could I contemplate the miseries of our coun- 
try, and not glow with indignation at beholding all the rare gifts 
which Heaven and nature had so benignantly bestowed, rendered 
unavailing — made but the occasion of tears to us all — every fountain 
of good dried up, or poisoned by the envy and iniquity of man ? 
How could I admit the idea that I ought to sacrifice my thoughts and 



354 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

dearest sentiments, merely for the sake of pursuing, at home, one of 
our genteel professions, which, after all, could not preserve me from 
the general degradation, nor, perhaps, from infamy ? And should I 
have done so ? And why ? From the cowardly fear, perhaps, of 
being exiled from the land of my fathers, when, in the buoyancy of 
youth, I could turn to another country — far distant, it is true, but 
free ; to a country in which I could obtain a subsistence without sac- 
rificing 07ie of my opinions ; where, even now, notwithstanding I 
may be made deeply to realize the axiom that mankind are the same 
everywhere, I do not see all around me the aspect of misery and un- 
happiness, nor daily instances of the petty vengeance and cold-hearted 
injustice of our tyrants ; where the cheerful prospect of peace and 
universal prosperity almost reconciles one to the inevitable evils inci- 
dent to human society ; where, at least, thought and speech are not 
crimes, and you can cherish the hope of a better future without see- 
ing beside you the prison or the gallows ; where the mind can ex- 
pand unfettered by any servile chain — yes, the mind, which I now 
feel as free within me as when it was first bestowed by God. 

"And yet I complain! It is true; and I well know what you 
will reply to these letters, which I write only for tlie pleasure of 
being with you, even while we are separated. But if you have the 
heart to charge all the blame to me, I would beg you, Eugenio, to 
remember that every tear teaches a truth to mortals, and that I, too, 
am one of those numerous creatures, made up of weaknesses and 
illusions, who drag themselves blindly, and without knowing where 
or why, in the path of inexorable fate. Now that I feel that there 
never existed so great a necessity for bringing about an alliance be- 
tween my reason and my heart, I cannot discover the method by 
which to accomplish it, and the task never seemed more impractica- 
ble. Reason, which levels everything with her balance to a just 
equilibrium, and reduces, by calculation, all things to a frigid system, 
you have adopted as your goddess ; and truly she is a most potent 
divinity, and often have I invoked her aid, and supplicatingly adored 
her power. Yet this heart of mine is such a petty and obstinate 
tyrant, that it will never yield the palm even when fairly conquered ; 
and, in its waywardness, takes a wicked pleasure in pointing out the 
naked coldness of your divinity, and setting her before me in a most 
uninviting light. Hence it is that I am devoured with the desire of 
home ; nor will all the charms of glory, or the smUes of fortune, 
lure me from the dearer hope of reunion with the land and the loved 
of my heart. Yet who knows where I shall leave my bones ? "Who 
knows if these eyes shall close eternally to the light amid the tears 
of my kindred, or whether friendship and love will linger sorrowfully 
near to receive my last ?igh ? 



ITALIAN TKAVELLEKS. 355 

'■'■ Addio. I commend to you my mother. This phrase would be 
meaningless to any but you. I have used it to express all I feel for 
that tenderest of beings — for her whom I continually behold in ima- 
gination, weeping and desolate. If the voice of pity and friendship 
are powerful in your heart, I pray you, Eugenio, leave her not un- 
consoled. Thou must be as another child to her, and ever remember 
that she is the mother of thy friend. 



" May Ibth. 

" This morning I rose full of anxiety. Tlie moment I awoke, my 
first thought was of you, of my family, and of the delay of your 
letters ; and the sound of the breakfast bell first aroused me from my 
painful reverie. I descended, swallowed a single cup of cofl:ee, and, 
quick as thought, hastened to the office. I did not expect to find let- 
ters, but having given my name, and perceiving that the postman did 
not return the customary nod of refusal, my heart began to palpitate 
strongly. I did not deceive myself. I have my mother's letter to 
which you have made so large an addition, and I have been till this 
moment shut up in my room, reading it over and over again, and 
bathing every line with my tears. God reward you for all your care 
and your love for me ! I trust that, ere this, you have received my 
first letters, and thus been relieved of all anxiety on my account. I 
thank you for all the news you givo me, and especially for what you 
tell me respecting our young companions, who, I rejoice to know, 
are now quite free from the ill-founded suspicions of Government. 
The condition of Italy, however, seems to grow more sad every day ; 
and you write me tliat many are rejoicing at the rumor of imminent 
war, and in the hope that our old liberators will again reappear 
among us. For my part, however, I cannot but tremble with you, 
since now there is less certainty than ever that aught will remain to 
us but injuries and derision. The present and past misfortunes of 
our country should have taught us tliat, if there is anything to hope, 
it is from ourselves alone ; and it is certain, that if the new subjects 
of the new citizen-king descend again from the mountains, there is 
reason to believe that the disgraces of bygone times will be renewed 
in Italy, and it will be our lot to transmit another record of shame 
and cowardly execrations. 

" From your literary news, I learn that the Anthology of Flor- 
ence has been abolished, and, as usual, by command of Austria. I 
had made no little search for the last number. Be it so. The sup- 
pression of that work is only one other insult to our condition, but 
not a serious loss to the nation, since the writers, who perhaps set 
out with the idea of undeceiving the Italians, are themselves the 



356 AilERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

very ones who propagate their unfortunate illusions; and in that 
journal, which was doubtless the best we had, they also said too 
much, and without profit. In these times, there exist no Alfieris or 
Foscolos ; and the new school, which promised so much by its his- 
torical romances, has thus far accomplished little enough, if we ex- 
cept one or two sermons on passive obedience. Botta remains, but 
he is alone ; and the soul of Tacitus, which should be devoted to so 
exalted a work, is wanting to him. Moreover, his thoughts, although 
grand and sacred, are rather understood readily by those who think, 
than felt deeply by the mass, with that profound sens6 of despera- 
tion, from which alone a real change and constancy of opinion are to 
be hoped for among the Italians. 

" To tell you the truth, I believe we are so susceptible of illu- 
sions, that the intellectual energy of no writer whatever can avail 
anything in eradicating from the hearts of our countrymen the weak- 
nesses which are as old as our servitude, and which are strongly 
maintained by the consciousness of general debasement and actual 
incapacity, as well as by the small degree of virtue and the total 
absence of ambition on the part of our princes. I desired to allude 
to these circumstances, in reply to that part of your letter wherein 
you recommend me not to forget Italy and our studies. But, as yet, 
you seem unaware, that in this land I have conceived a love of coun- 
try not only more powerful than ever, but instinct with a desperate 
earnestness which consumes my heart. Wherever I turn, the aspect 
of all the civil and social benefits enjoyed by this fortunate people, 
fills me, at the same time, with wonder, admiration, and immense 
grief. Not that I envy the Americans their good fortune, which, on 
the contrary, I ardently rejoice in, and desire, as much as any one of 
themselves, may be forever continued to tlie laud. But I think of 
Italy, and know not how to persuade myself why her condition 
should be so diflferent and so sad. I do not allude to the general 
policy of the coHutry, but I speak of what I see every day while 
walking the streets — a quiet population, incessantly intent upon in- 
dustry and commerce, without being retarded by civil restrictions or 
tyrannical extortions, by the subterfuges of official harpies, or by the 
machinery of so many hungry and shameless financiers, nor yet 
continually irritated by the insufferable and cowardly insolence of 
the ministers of the law, who, either in the military garb, or as civil 
oflUcers, or in the form of police, are the vilest instruments of Euro- 
pean tyranny — the ])ests of the state, consuming its substance and 
resources, and corrupting the manners and morals of the people. 
Here, I have not yet seen in the streets a single soldier, nor one 
patrol of police, nor, in fact, any guard of the public safety ; and, 



ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 357 

having occasion to go to the Custom House, I was quite astonished 
to see the simplicity of tlie forms, the expedition with which affairs 
were conducted, and the small number of officers employed. In- 
deed, this people seem like a large and united family, if not bound 
together by affection and reciprocal love, at least allied by a common 
and certain interest, and the experience that the good of all is the 
good of the individual. Every one who has the wiU to labor will 
easily find occasion for its free practice and most adequate recom- 
pense. Not being incited by opportunity and the keen necessities of 
life, crimes are rare, violences almost unheard of, and poverty and 
extreme want unknown. In the streets and markets, and in every 
place of public resort, you behold an activity, a movement, an 
energy of life, and a continual progress of affairs ; and in the move- 
ments and countenances of the people, you can discern a certain air 
of security, confidence, and dignity, which asks only for free scope. 
I know not how it is, but often I pause thoughtfully in the midst of 
the thoroughfare, to contemplate the scene around me. I sometimes 
find myself standing by some habitation, and my fancy begins to pic- 
ture it as the sanctuary of every domestic and social virtue — as the 
cradle of justice and piety — as the favorite sojourn of love, peace, 
and every human excellence. And my heart is cheered, and bleeds 
at the same time, as I then revert to Italy, and imagine what might 
be her prosperity, and how she might gloriously revive, and become 
again mistress of every virtue and every noble custom, among the 
nations of the world. 

." Judge, then, if I have forgotten, or if it will be possible for me to 
forget Italy, as long as I remain in this country. For the rest, as I 
have before said, I am only made the more constantly to remember 
my native land. I am told, and begin to realize, that here, as well 
as there, Utopian views of politics, morals, religion, and philosophy, 
have long prevailed, and promise to grow more luxuriously than 
ever, and become, perhaps, fatal to the prosperity and liberty of this 
land. It is, however, no small consolation for the moment, to reflect, 
that the doctrines of this nation do not depend upon the letterati, or 
rather, that the country does not look to that class for its salvation ; 
which, as such, has no voice in the capital. There are here no mere 
questions of language ; no romanticists or classicists who cannot 
understand each other ; no imperial nor royal academicians of gram- 
mar ; no furious pedants who are continually disputing how we 
should write, nor any that pretend to dictate how we should think. 
Eloquence is here the true patrimony, and, in fact, the most formi- 
dable weapon for good or for evil, in the hands of the people, who 
estimate it more or less by the standard of their wants or individual 



358 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMETSTTATOES. 

partialities. I will tell yon, however, from time to time, in future 
letters, as I become better informed on these subjects. Yet expect 
not, I pray you, from me, either statistics, disquisitions, or a travel- 
ler's journal, since you know I came hither in quite another capacity. 

There goes, with this, another letter to our yoimg friend B , who 

writes me that he desires to come and seek his fortune in the United 
States. You will see my reply ; and, to dissuade him still more from 
the project, let him see what I have written you. Addio. Live ever 
in the love of your friends, of letters, of your country, and of yours, 



An errant countryman of ours, with the ready wit of an 
educated New Englander, when sojourning in London, after 
a long visit to the Continent, bemg disapjDointed in his remit- 
tances, conceived the idea of replenishing his jDurse by a spir- 
ited article for one of the popular magazines, wherein he 
imagined the sayings and doings of a Yankee ruler suddenly 
placed at the head of affiiirs in the kingdom of Naples. The 
picture was salient and unique, and amused the public. We 
were irresistibly reminded thereof by a little brochure 
wherein the process here described is exactly reversed, and, 
instead of a Yankee letterato in Naples, we have a Neapolitan 
priest in America. So grotesquely ignorant and absurdly 
superstitious and conservative is the spirit of this brief and 
hasty record,* that we cannot but regret the naive writer had 
not extended his tour and his chronicle ; for, in that case, we 
should have had the most amusing specimen extant of mod- 
ern Travels in America. The author was a chaplain in the 
navy of his Majesty of Naples. He describes the voyage of 
the frigate Urania during a nearly two years' cruise from 
Castellamare to Gibraltar, thence via TenerifTe to Pernam- 
buco, Rio Janeiro, and St. Helena, to New York and Boston, 
and back to Naples by way of England and France. In his 
dedication of the " Breve Racconto " to the very reverend 
chaplain of Ferdinand II, he declares he finds " non pochi 

* " Breve Racconto delle cose Chiesasticbe piu Iiiiportanti occorse nel 
viaggio fatto sulla Real Frcgata Urania, dal 15 Agosto, 1844, al 4 Marzo, 
1846, per Raffaele Capobianco, Cavalierc del Real Ordine del Merito di Fran- 
ceses I. e Capellano della Real Marina," Napoli, 1846. 



ITALIAN TKAVELLEKS. 359 

consolazioni " in having gathered " some fruits in the vine- 
yard of the Lord " during his perilous voyage ; but he adds, 
" the rivers are but little grateful for the retxirn of the water 
they yielded in vapor ; " and so this dedication and descrip- 
tion are but a poor return to " our fountain of wisdom and 
virtue." The style, spirit, ideas in this little journal are quite 
mediaeval. The simplicity and ignorance and bigotry of the 
roving ecclesiastic are the more striking from their contrast 
with the times and places of which he writes. Imagine a 
priest or friar suddenly transported from the Toledo to 
Broadway, and it is easy to solve what would otherwise be 
enigmatical in this childish narrative. He mentions, with 
pious reflections, the death of a mariner at sea from " nos- 
talgia;" lauds, at the South American ports, the Roman 
Catholic religion, remarking its aptitude to " generalmente 
insinuarsi nel cuore del popolo docile." At Rio Janeiro he 
celebrates the feast of the Virgin ; aud to the devout manner 
in which the ship's company commended themselves to her, 
he attributes their subsequent miraculous escape from ship- 
wreck. Thus, he writes, " God showed himself content with 
our homage to the Virgin." They keep Palm Sunday on 
board, with palms brought from St. Helena. He describes 
summarily the aspect of the cities they visit, gives the alti- 
tude of the peak of Tenerifte, notes the zones and tropics, the 
rites, and rate of their progress. " La navigazione felice," 
he observes, " arrise alle pie devozioni." On entering ISTcav 
York harbor, the chaplain says we passed " il grande forte 
Hamilton, e finalmente la Fregata," after six thousand miles 
of navigation, " dropt her anclior opposite the Battery gar- 
den, built in the sea, and joined to the continent by a wooden 
bridge about two hundred feet long." He remarks upon the 
public buildings, observing that the Exchange was " rebuilt 
in 1838, and is destined for a hospital;" that the Croton 
Avater " serves for conflagrations, which are very frequent," 
and that " il commercio 6 attivissimo." He descants upon 
" la immensita de vapori," declaring that the ferry boats 
carry " not only loaded carts, ten or fifteen at a time, but also 



360 AMERICA AND HER COMilENTATOKS. 

bath-houses, with every convenience." His most elaborate 
descriptions, however, are reserved for the Catholic churches 
— St. Patrick's, St. Peter's, St. Giusepi^e, and the Church of 
the Transfiguration, where he celebrated mass. He admires 
the " Campanile" of " il Tempio colossale degli Episcopali" 
(Trinity Church), and is charmed with the " Seminario Cat- 
tolico," through which he was conducted by " quel gentile e 
Adrtuoso vescovo Monsignore Hus " — doubtless the late Bishop 
Hughes. The Italian priests, the juvenile choristers, and the 
church music excite his enthusiasm. Crowds of Catholics, 
he tells us, came on board the frigate to hear the sailors sing 
" Salva Regina." Romanism, he declares, has " profoimd 
root " in the United States, and " daily grows," though the 
Episcopalians still strive " to infuse into the human heart the 
poison that, in 1603, came from Elizabeth's successor." He 
calls the Protestant sects " tristi piante," and gives a list 
thereof, adding, " and to finish the noisome catalogue, to con- 
fusion add confusion, with the Quakers and Hebrew syna- 
gogues." " II nemico infernale," he says, tried to insinuate 
his " veleno dell' errore " into the ship. Protestant emissa- 
ries from the Bible Society came on board to distribute the 
Scriptures " senza spirito santo ! " His indignation at this 
proceeding is boundless. " Era mai possibile," he exclaims, 
" che i cieclii ilhuninassero gli illuminati e che intiepidessoro 
nel el cuore de Napolitani quella Religione che il Principe 
stesso degli Apostoli venne a predicai*e nella loro citta ! " * 

Leaving New York, the pious chaplain Avas " swept from 
the shores of the Hudson to Cape Cod," and, on the 3d of 
Juno, entered "the wonderful and picturesque bay" of Bos- 
ton, to the sound of greeting cannon, and surrounded " by 
gondolas, whence arose cordial hurrahs" ("ben venga"). 
Boston, says the erudite chaplain, " was founded by English 
colonists from Boston in England. Bunker Hill monument 
was commenced in 1827 by the celebrated engineer, O'Don- 

* " As if it were possible for the blind to enlighten the enlightened, and 
weaken in the hearts of Neapolitans that religion which the Prince of the 
Apostles himself came to preach in their own city." 



ITALIAUr TEAVELLEKS, 361 

nell Webster, under the presidency of the celebrated La- 
fayette ! " He describes the public edifices, and, among them, 
the " Casa di Citta," " which rises from a height near the 
public garden, and presents a majestic appearance, with colr 
rcmtis of white raarbleP Among the memorable names of 
streets, he observes, is " that of Franklin, who drew the 
lightning from heaven." Of the churches, he only remem- 
bers the Cathedral, the care and prosperity of which he 
ascribes " to that excellent prelate, Fitzpatrick." Again he 
congratulates himself upon the progress of his Church — 
thanks to the labors " della propagazione delle fede " — and 
declares that " the net of St. Peter does not fail to fish up 
many new souls from the turbid sea of error." Although 
made up of all nations, " the Americans," says the Neapoli- 
tan padre, " follow the habits and customs of the English." 
From Boston the frigate went to HoUand and to England, 
from Plymouth to Brest, thence to Carthagena and Toulon, 
the island of Zante and Navarino, all of which places are 
briefly noted ; and from the latter they proceed to Naples, 
which harbor and city the delighted chaplain hails as the 
cradle of Tasso and the tomb of Virgil ; saluting, in the 
facile rhetoric of his native tongue, Mergellina, " where rest 
the ashes of Sannazaro," Herculaneum, Pompeii, and the light 
" del nostro sole, un perpetuo e vivissimo verde, I'ombrifero 
pin^, il pomposo cipresso, I'odorato arancio, ima sopredente 
moltitudine di eleganti casine sparse per tutta quanto la 
costa, stanze di un popolo vivacissimo ed amorevole ! " At 
length, two steamers sent by " la benignita de Re " approach 
the Urania, and the loyal and loving Padre Capobianco in- 
vokes Heaven's blessing on his head and reign, and, " in the 
midst of the joy and afiection of kindred and friends," kisses 
his native earth. 

Every American who has travelled in Europe has some 
extraordinary anecdote to relate of the ignorance there exist- 
ing in regard to the geography, history, and condition of his 
country ; but, perhaps, the questions asked him are nowhere 
so absurd as in Sicily. Her isolated position before the ad- 
16 



362 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

vent of Garibaldi, and the prevalent want of education, 
explain the phenomenon. Two things chiefly the Sicilians 
know about America — that she imports fruit, sulphur, and 
rags from the island, and aflTords a safe asylum for political 
refugees. At the seaports, especially in Syracuse, our naval 
oflSicers are remembered as the most liberal of gentlemen. A 
deputation, not many years since, when the American squad- 
ron in the Mediterranean wintered there, waited on the com- 
modore, and ofiered to cooperate with him in annexing Sicily 
to the United States. A spacious hotel was built at Syracuse, 
under the expectation that the fine harbor of that ancient city 
would become the permanent rendezvous of our fleet ; but 
the jealousy of Bomba interposed, and Mahon continued to 
be the depot of our national ships, until Spezzia was substi- 
tuted. Within a short period it was impossible to find in 
Sicily a book that could enlighten a native, in the Italian lan- 
guage, as to the actual resources and institutions of America. 
In 1853, however, one of the Palenno editors published a 
volume giving an accovmt of his experience in the United 
States, with statistics and political facts, interspersed with no 
small amoimt of complacent gossip. The novelty of the 
subject then and there seemed to atone for the superficial and 
egotistic tone. Very amusing it was to an American so- 
journer in the beautiful Sicilian capital, to glance at the 
" Viaggio nella America Settentrionale di Salvatore Abbate e 
Migliori." We have seen what kind of gossip the French 
and English indulge in while recording their experience in 
America ; let us compare with it a Sicilian's. He avows his 
object in visiting the New World — to ascertain for himself 
how far the unfavorable representations of a well-known class 
of British ti'avellers are correct. He gravely assures his 
countrymen that, although foreigners are kindly received 
there, the Government does not pay for the transit of emi- 
gres. The great characteristic which naturally impressed a 
subject of Ferdinand of Naples, was the non-interference of 
Government with private persons and affairs, except when 
the former have rendered themselves directly amenable to the 



ITALIAN TRAVELLERS. 363 

law, by some invasion of the rights of others — an inestimable 
privilege ia the view of one who has lived imder espionage, 
sMrri, and the inquisition. All things are ganged by the law 
of contrast in this world ; and it is curious, with the bitter 
and often just complaints of Englishmen of the discomforts 
of travel in America fresh in mind, to note the delight with 
which a Sicilian, accustomed to the rude lettiga^ hard mule, 
precarious fare, and risk of encountering bandits, expatiates 
upon the safety, the society, and abundant rations accorded 
the traveller in the Western world. " Ecco," exclaims Salva- 
tore, after describing a delightful tete-a-tete with a fair com- 
panion in the cars, and a hearty supper on board the steamer 
en route from Boston to New York, " Ecco il felice modo di 
viaggiare negli Stati Uniti sia per terra che per acqua ; 
divertimenti sociali e senza prejudizii, e celerita di viaggio 
libero dai furtori e dagli assassini." 

The/esto bells of some saint are forever ringing in Sicily; 
and, although our traveller found holidays few and far be- 
tween in this busy land, he describes, with much zest, the first 
of May, New Year's, and St. Valentine's Day in New York. 
His journal, while there, is quite an epitome of what is so 
familiar to us as to be scarcely realized, imtil thus " set in a 
note book," as the strange experience of a Southern Euro- 
pean. To him, intelligence offices for domestics, mock auc- 
tions, the Empire Club, anniversaries of national societies, 
the frequency of conflagrations, matrimonial advertisements, 
the extent of insurance, the variety and modes of worship 
of Protestant sects, the number and freedom of public jour- 
nals, the unimpeded association of the sexes, and the size and 
splendor of the fashionable stores and hotels, are features 
and facts of metropolitan life so novel as to claim elaborate 
description. Amusement is an essential element of life to an 
Italian, fostered by his sensibility to pleasant excitement, and 
his long political vassalage. Accordingly, Salvatore devotes 
no inconsiderable portion of his book to the public entertain- 
ments available in our cities. Few Americans imagine how 
much an enthusiastic foreigner can find to gratify his taste 



364 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 

and divert his mind in New York. The careers of the cele- 
brated English actors, Italian opera singers, and German 
pianists, the concerts of Ole Bull and De Meyer, the military 
balls, travelling circuses, pubUc dinners, private soirees, and 
theatres, afford Salvatore a theme upon which he dilates as 
only one of his sensitive and mercurial race can ; and the 
American reader is astonished to discover what abundant 
provision for the pleasure seeker may be found in our utUitar 
rian land. 

More grave interests, however, are not forgotten. A suc- 
cinct but authentic account is given of some of the aborigi- 
nal tribes ; our constitutional system is clearly stated ; the 
details of government in the Eastern and Middle States are 
defined ; the means and methods of education ; the cereals, 
trees, rivers, charitable institutions, agricultural and mechani- 
cal industry of .the country, are intelligently explained and 
illustrated ; and thus a considerable amoimt of important 
information afforded, altogether new to the mass of his 
countrymen. This is evidently collected from books of refer- 
ence ; and its tone and material form an absolute contrast to 
the light-hearted and childish egotism of the writer's own 
diary, wherein the vanity of a versifier and sentimentalism 
of a beau continually remind us of the amiable gallants and 
dilettante litterateurs we have met among Salvatore's country- 
men. His generalizations are usually correct, but tinctm-ed 
with his national temperament. He describes the Americans 
as " a little cold, thoughtful, sustained, grave, positive in 
speech and argument, brave, active, intelligent, and true in 
friendship." The Northerners, he says, " are born with the 
instinct of work, and in physiognomy are like Europeans." 
Though there are " not many rich, most are comfortable ; 
and, though few are learned, the great majority are intelli- 
gent. Labor is a social requisition ; moderate fortunes and 
large families abound ; and the test question in regard to a 
stranger is, ' "What can he do ? ' " He sums u]) the peciiliar 
advantages of the coimtry as consisting of " a good climate, 
a fertUe soil, salubrious air and water, abundance of provis- 



rrALIAN TRAVELLERS. 365 

ions, adequate pay for labor, good laws, aflfable women, en- 
couragements to matrimony, freedom, and public education " 
— each and all of which he seems to appreciate from the con- 
trast they afford to the civil wrongs and social limitations of 
his own beautiful land, not then emancipated from the most 
degrading of modern despotisms. He notes the temperature 
with care, and has occasion to realize its extreme alternations. 
To a Sicilian, a snowstorm and sleighing must prove a winter 
carnival ; and Salvatore gives a chapter to what he calls " La 
citta nel giubello della neve." He finds the American women 
charming, and marvels at the extent and variety of their edu- 
cational discipline, giving the programme of» studies in a 
fashionable female seminary as one of the wonders of the 
land ; and also a catalogue of popular and gifted female 
ivTiters, as an unprecedented social fact in his experience. 
Salvatore was a great reader of newspapers while in this 
country, and was in the habit of transcribing, from those 
" charts of busy life," characteristic incidents and articles 
wherewith to illustrate his record of life in America. He 
was puffed by editorial friends, and mentions such compli- 
ments, as well as the publication of some of his own verses, 
with no little complacency ; as, for instance, " Quest' oggi, 
contra ogui mia aspettazione, si e pubblicato nel giomale — • 
Evening Post, un elogio dando a conoscere agli Americani lo 
scopo del mio viaggio," &c. ; and elsewhere, " il mio addio 
all' America e stato messo in niusica." 

One of the latest publications of Italian origin, although 
written in the French language and by a French citizen, is 
that of a Corsican officer, one of Prince Napoleon's suite, on 
his brief visit to the United States, in the summer of 1861.* 

Eighteen hundred leagues traversed in two months, " more 
with eyes than ears or mind," would seem to afford a most 
inadequate basis for discussion where grave facts of national 
polity and character are its subjects ; but when the author of 
such a record begins by confessing himself mistaken as a 

* " Lettres sur les £tats-Unis d'Amerique," par le Lieutenant-Colonel 
Ferri Pisani, Aide-de-camp de S. A. I. le Prince Napoleon, Paris, 1862. 



366 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

prophet, and disclaims all pretensions to other accuracy and 
interest than can be found in a " point de vue general," and 
" portraits saisis au vol," and " resumes de conversations fugi- 
tives," we accept his report and speculations with zest, if not 
with entire satisfaction, and accompany his rapid expedition, 
animated descriptions, and thoughtful though hasty com- 
mentary, with the more pleasure inasmuch as the temper 
and tone of both indicate an experienced traveller, a shrewd 
observer, and a cultivated thinker. The time of this visit 
and date of its record give thereto an interest apart from any 
intrinsic claim. America had just been converted from a 
world of peaceful industry to a scene of civil war. The 
Gallic visitors compared the crisis to that which had once 
hurled France into anarchy and military despotism ; and be- 
held here a mighty army improvised in the Free States, with 
no apparent check to their industrial prosperity ; and govern- 
mental powers assumed to meet the exigency without pro- 
voking any popular distrust in the rectitude of the authori- 
ties or the safety of their rights ; arrests, proscription, and 
enlistments were sanctioned by public confidence ; in a word, 
the patriotism of an instructed people was the safeguard of 
the republic. 

It is remarkable that a writer whose mind was so pre- 
occupied with the exciting mUitary scenes and imminent 
political problems of the day, should have become so thor- 
oughly and justly impressed with the religious phenomena 
of the Eastern States, tracing their development from the 
Pilgrims to Edwards, and thence to "Whitfield and Channing ; 
and the conflicts of faith thus foreshadowed. " Les Etats- 
Unis," he writes, " presentent en ce moment des spectacles 
bien emouvants. Les armees s'entrechoquent sur tons les 
points de leur immense temtoire. Une race qui semblait 
devoir realiser ] 'ideal pacifique de I'humanite moderne se 
transforme tout a coup en un peuple belliqueux et se dechire 
de ses propres mains. D'autre part I'esclavage se dresse, au 
milieu des horreurs de la guerre, come une question de vie ou 
de mort, devant laquelle reculent et le philosophe, et I'homme 
18* 



ITALIAN TEAVELLEKS. 367 

d'etat et I'economiste. Eh bien ! faut-il vous I'avouer, mon 
colonel, tous ces faits extraordinaires, dont nous sommes 
temoins, et qui rempliront un jour I'histoire de ce siecle, ont 
a mes yeux una portee moins redoutable que celui que nous 
venons de trouver a Boston, un de ces faits qui bouleversent 
la condition de I'homme, sans s'inscrire, comme les grands 
evenements politiques, en traits de feu et du sang, dans sa 
memoire. Je veux parler de I'etablissement du Deisme dans 
le nouveau monde sous la forme d'une religion, d'une Eglise, 
du Deisme, non plus enseigne par ime philosophic sj)eculative, 
mais pratique comme im culte, comme un principe moral et 
social, par I'elite de la societe Americaine, et faisant, au de- 
pens du Protestantisme, les progres les plus effi-ayants." 
Thereupon we have a treatise on "Protestantism," from 
Edwards and Whitfield to Channing ; the Puritans, the 
voluntary church system, rationalism, &c., " face a face aveo 
le Catholicisme ; " and he concludes with the prophecy that 
" ce sera entre ces deux champions que se livrera le combat 
supreme qui d^cidera des destiiiees futures de I'humanite." 

Colonel Pisani's letters are a striking illustration of the 
facilities of modern travel. He describes the complete and 
elegant appointments of the swift and safe steam yacht in 
which Prince Napoleon, his wife, and suite, after visiting 
various points of the Old World, crossed the ocean, and, in a 
very few weeks, saw half a continent. They entered the 
harbor of New York, after days of cautious navigation 
owing to the dense fog, which, fortunately, and almost dra- 
matically, lifted just as they sailed up the beautiful bay, re- 
vealing, under the limpid effulgence of a summer day, a spec- 
tacle which enchanted the Colonel, familiar as he was with 
the harbors of Naples and Constantinople. 

The reader can scarcely help findirfg a parallel in this sud- 
den and delightful change in the natural landscape, with that 
which exists between the preface and the text of this work, 
in regard to the national cause. Arriving at the moment 
when the defeat of the Federal army at Bull Run had spread 
dismay among the conservative traders, and warmed to im- 



368 AMERICA ANTD HEE COMMENTATOES. 

prudent exultation the traitors of the North, all the travel- 
lers heard from the official representatives of their country 
■who greeted their arrival, was discouraging — almost hopeless 
for the republic. His Highness thought otherwise, and 
viewed the national cause with imshaken confidence ; but 
Colonel Pisani, in giving his letters to the public, a year 
afterward, found himself obliged to retract premature fore- 
bodings, and admit a reaction and reversal, not only of the 
fortimes of war, but of the vital prospects of the nation. 
Midsummer is the worst period of the year for a foreigner to 
arrive in New York — a fact this writer scarcely appreciated, 
as he regards the deserted aspect of the palatial residences as 
their normal condition, and speaks of the then appearance of 
the population as if it were characteristic. Surprised by the 
courteous urbanity of those with whom he came in contact 
in shops, streets, and public conveyances, he contrasts this 
superiority of manners with his anticipations of ruffianism, 
and with the utter neglect of municipal method and decency. 
The American steamboats and railways are fully discussed 
and described. Broadway seems to Pisani a bazaar a league 
and a half in length. He misses the taste in dress familiar 
to a Parisian's eye, thinks the horses and harnesses fine, but 
the horsemen and equipages inferior. Despite "les indus- 
tries de luxe," men of leisure, varied culture, and special 
tastes seemed quite rare, and the average physiognomy un- 
attractive. The architecture and aspect of the hotels strike 
him as sombre compared with those of Paris ; and he de- 
clares every gamin of that metropolis would ridicule our 
popular and patriotic fetes as childish attempts thereat, Avhich 
he attributes to the basis of Anglo-Saxon reserve in the na- 
tional character, wherein " I'expression de la pensee est rare- 
ment dans un rapport exact avec la pensee elle-meme." De- 
centralization, and all its phenomena, naturally impress his 
mind, accustomed to routine and method ; and the manner of 
recruiting and organizing — in fact, the whole military regime 
of the country — offers salient points of comment and criticism 
to one who has long witnessed the results of professional life 



ITALIAN TKAVELLEKS. 369 

in this spbere. Visiting Philadelphia, Washington, and the 
great lakes, adapting themselves to the customs and the peo- 
ple, examining all things with good-natnred intelligence, this 
record contains many acvtte remarks and suggestive generali- 
zations. We have numerous portraits of individuals, sketches 
of scenery, reflections on the past, and speculations as regards 
the future. The absence of a concierge at the White House, 
the naivete of the new President, the character and principles 
of statesmen and of parties, are subjects of candid discus- 
sion. The mines of Lake Superior, the community of Rapp- 
ists, McCormick's manufactory of " engins agricoles," the 
local trophies and the economical resources of the covmtry, 
find judicious mention. While the Colonel is indignant at 
the " curiosite brutale " encountered in the West, he pays a 
grateful tribute to the hospitality of the people. At Pitts- 
burg, the site of Fort Duquesne, he reverts with j^ride and 
pathos, to the French domination on this continent, recalls its 
military successes, and laments its final overthrow. At Moimt 
Vernon he thinks of Lafayette's last visit, and sadly contrasts 
that period of republican enthusiasm and prosperity with the 
sanguinary conflict of the passing hour. Lideed, the value 
and interest of these letters consist in the vivid glimpses 
they afibrd of the darkest hour in our history as a free peo- 
ple, and the indirect but authentic testimony thus afforded to 
the recuperative and conservative power of our institutions 
and national character. Colonel Pisani accompanied Prince 
Napoleon in his visits to the camps of both armies, and heard 
their respective officers express their sentiments freely. Rare 
in the history of war is such an instance of dual observation 
apparently candid ; seldom has the same pen recorded, within 
a few hours, impressions of two hostile forces, their aspect, 
condition, aims, anhnus, and leaders. Rapid as was the jour- 
ney and hasty the inspection, we have many true and vivid 
pictures and portraits ; and it is interesting to note how 
gradually but surely the latent resources of the coimtry, the 
absolute instincts of the popular will, and the improved be- 
cause sustained force of the Government, are revealed to the 
16* 



370 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

mind of this pleasant raconteur, who brings home to the 
American reader the moral crisis, so memorable in the retro- 
spect, which succeeded our premature battle for national 
Ijonor and life — whose vital current, thus baffled, shrank back 
to the heart of the republic, only to return with fresh and 
permanent strength to every vein in the body politic, and 
vitalize the popular brain and heart with concentrated patri- 
otic soope, insight, and action. Absorbing, however, as was 
the question of the hour even to a casual sojourner, the 
physical, social, and economical traits of the country were 
only more sympathetically examined by the intelligent party 
of the Prince because of the war cloud that overhmig them ; 
and we are transported from inland sea and lonely prairie to 
the capital of New England, where, says the Colonel, " for 
the first time I believed myself in Europe," and to quite other 
society than the governmental circles at Washington or the 
financial cliques of New York. At Cambridge and Bos- 
ton, with Agassiz, Felton, Everett, and others, he found con- 
genial minds. The speech of the latter at a parting banquet 
given the Prince, is noted as a model of tact and rhetoi'ic ; 
while " Vive la France," the refrain of Holmes' song, with 
happy augury cheered their departure. 



CHAPTER X. 

AMEBIGAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 

JOHN AND "WTLLTAM BARTKAM ; MADAME KNIGHT ; LEDYAED ; CAR- 
VER ; JEFFERSON ; IMLAY ; DWIGHT ; COXE ; INGERSOLL ; WALSH ; 
PAULDING ; FLINT ; CLINTON ; HALL ; TUDOR ; WIRT ; COOPER ; 
HOFFMAN ; OLMSTED ; BRYANT ; GOVERNMENT EXPLORATIONS ; 
"WASHINGTON ; MRS. KIRKLAND ; IRVING ; AMERICAN ILLUSTRA- 
TIVE LITERATURE ; BIOGRAPHY ; HISTORY ; MANUALS ; ORATORY ; 
ROMANCE ; POETRY ; LOCAL PICTURES ; EVERETT, HAWTHORNE, 
CHANTSONG, ETC. 

There is one class of travellers in America that have 
peculiar claims upon native sympathy and consideration ; for 
neither foreign adventure nor royal patronage, nor even pri- 
vate emolument, prompted their journeyings. Natives of 
the soil, and inspired either by scientific or patriotic enthusi- 
asm — not seldom by both — they strove to make one part of 
our vast country known to the other ; to reveal the natural 
beauties and resources thereof to their neighbors, and to 
Europeans ; and to promote national development by careful 
exploration and faithful reports. All the intelligent pioneers 
of our border civilization more or less enacted the part of 
beneficent travellers. Public spirit, in colonial and later times, 
found scope in expeditions which opened paths through the 
wilderness, tested soil, climate, and natural productions, and 
estimated the facilities hitherto locked up in primeval soli- 



372 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

tudes. Washington's early surveys, Boone's first sojourn in 
the woods of Kentucky, Clinton's visit to Western New 
York to trace the course of the Eric Canal, are examples of 
this incidental kind of home travel, so useful to the early 
statesmen and the political economists. At subsequent 
periods, the natural features of the Great West were revealed 
to us by Flint and Hall ; New England local and social traits 
were agreeably reported by Tudor and Dwight ; Lewis and 
Clarke gave the first authentic glimpses of the Rocky Moun- 
tains and the adjacent plains, afterward so bravely traversed 
by Fremont and others ; and Schoolcraft gathered up the 
traditions and the characteristics of those regions still occu- 
pied by the aborigines ; and while Audubon tracked the 
feathered creation along the whole Atlantic coast, Percival 
examined every rood of the soil of Connecticut. 

Among the most interesting of the early native travellers 
in America, are the two Bartrams. Their in'Stinctive fond- 
ness for nature, a simplicity and veneration born of the best 
original Quaker influence, and habits of rural work and medi- 
tation, throw a peculiar charm aroimd the memoirs of these 
kindly and assiduous naturalists, and make the account they 
have left of their wanderings fresh and genial, notwithstand- 
ing the vast progress since made in the natural sciences. 
John Bartram's name is held in grateful honor by botanists, 
as " the first Anglo-American who conceived the idea of 
establishing a botanic garden, native and exotic." He was 
lured to this enterprise, and its kindred studies, by the habit 
of collecting American plants and seeds for his friend, Peter 
CollLnson, of London. Encouraged by him, Bartram began 
to investigate and experiment in this pleasant field of inquiry. 
He was enabled to confirm Logan's theory in regard to maize, 
and to illustrate the sexes of plants. From such a humble 
and isolated beginning, botany expanded in this country into 
its present elaborate expositions. The first systematic enii- 
meration of American plants was commenced in Holland, by 
Gronovius, from descriptions furnished by John Clayton, of 
Virginia. As early as 1Y32, Mark Catesby, of Virginia, had 



AMERICAN TEAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 373 

published a volume on the " Natural History of Carolina, 
Florida, and the Bahamas." Golden, of New York, corre- 
sponded with European botanists, from his sylvan retreat 
near Newburg. We have already noticed the visit to 
America of a pupil of Linnoeus — Peter Kalm. The labors 
of Logan, Dr. Mitchell, Dr. Adam Kuhn of Philadelphia, 
the first professor of botany there, the establishment of Ho- 
sack's garden in New York, Dr. Schoeffs, Humphrey Mar- 
shall, Dr. CuUen of Berlin, the two Michauxs, Clinton, and 
the Abbe Correa, promoted the investigation and elucidation 
of this science in America, until it became associated with the 
more recent accomplishqd expositors. But with the earliest 
impulse and record thereof, the name of John Bartram is 
delightfully associated ; and it is as a naturalist that he made 
those excursions, the narrative of which retains the charm of 
ingenuous zeal, integrity, and kindliness. John Bartram was 
born in Delaware, then Chester Coimty, Penn., in 1699. His 
great-grandfather had lived and died in Derbyshire, England; 
his grandfather followed William Penn to the New World, 
and settled in the State which bears the famous Quaker's 
name ; his father married, " at Darby meeting, Elizabeth 
Hunt," and had three sons, of whom John, the eldest, in- 
herited from an uncle the farm. His early education was 
meagre, as far as formal teaching is concerned. He studied 
the grammar of the ancient languages, and had a taste for 
the medical art, in which he acquired skill enough to make 
him a most welcome and efficient physician to the poor. It 
is probable that, as a simpler, seeking herbs of alleviating 
virtues, he was won to that love of nature, especially fruits, 
flowers, and plants, which became almost a ruling passion. 
But, according to the exigencies of the time and country, 
Bartram was an agriculturist by vocation, and assiduous 
therein ; yet this did not prevent his indulging his scientific 
love of nature and his philosophic instinct : he observed and 
he reflected while occupied about his farm. The laws of 
vegetation, the loveliness of flowers, the mysteries of growth, 
were to him a perpetual miracle. To the thrift and sim- 



374: AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. 

plicity of life common among the original farmers of Amer- 
ica, he united an ardent love of knowledge and an admira- 
tion of the processes and the products of nature — partly a 
sentiment and partly a scientific impulse. Purchasing a tract 
on the banks of the Schuylkill, three miles from Philadelphia, 
he built, with his own hands, a commodious dwelling, culti- 
vated five acres as a garden, and made continual journeys in 
search of plants. The place became so attractive, that visit- 
ors flocked thither. By degrees he gained acquaintances 
abroad, established correspondence and a system of ex- 
changes with botanists, and so laid the foundation of botani- 
cal enterprise and taste in America. This hale, benign, and 
wise man, rarely combining in his natm'e the zeal and ob- 
servant habitude of the naturalist with the serene self-posses- 
sion of the Friend, travelled over a large part of the country, 
explored Ontario, the domain of the Iroquois, the shores and 
sources of the Hudson, Delaware, Schuylkill, Susquehanna, 
Alleghany, and San Juan. At the age of seventy he visited 
Carolina and Florida. 

Peter Collinson wrote of him to Golden as a " wonderful 
natural genius, considering his education, and that he was 
never out of America, but is a husbandman." " His obser- 
vations," he adds, " and accounts of all natural productions, 
are much esteemed here for their accuracy. It is really 
astonishing what a knowledge the man has attained merely 
by the force of industry and his own genius." 

The journal* of his tour was sent to England, and was 
published " at the instance of several gentlemen." The pre- 
face shows how comparatively rare were authentic books of 
Travel from natives of America, and how individual were 
Bartram's zeal and enterprise in this respect. " The inhab- 
itants of all the colonies," says the writer, " have eminently 

* " Observations on the Climate, Soil, Rivers, Productions, &c., made by 
Jolin Bartram in liis Travels from Pensilvania to Onondaga, Oswego, and 
the Lake Ontario in Canada ; to which is annexed a Curious Account of the 
Cataracts of Niagara, by Mr. Peter Kalm, a Swedish Gentleman who travelled 
there," London, 1751. 



AMEKICAN TRAVELLERS AJ^D WKITEKS. 375 

deserved the character of industrious in agriculture and 
commerce. I could wish they had as well deserved that of 
adventurous inland discoverers / in this they have been much 
outdone by another nation, whose poverty of country and 
unsettled temper have prompted them to such views of ex- 
tending their possessions, as our agriculture and commerce 
make necessary for us to imitate." 

The region traversed by Bartram a little more than a cen- 
tury ago, and described in this little volume, printed in the 
old-fashioned type, and bearing the old imprimatur of Fleet 
street, is one across and around which many of us have flown 
in the rail car, conscious of little but alternate meadows, 
woodland, streams, and to-^Tis, all denoting a thrifty and 
populous district, -^-ith here and there a less cultivated tract. 
Over this domain Bertram moved slowly, with his senses 
quickened to take in whatsoever of wonder or beauty nature 
exhibited. He experienced much of the exposure, privation, 
and precarious resources which befall the traveller to-day on 
our Western frontier ; and it is difficult to imagine that the 
calm and patient naturalist, as he notes the aspects of natm'e 
and the incidents of a long pilgrimage, is only passing over 
the identical ground which the busy and self-absorbed vota- 
ries of traffic and pleasure now daily pass, with scarcely a 
consciousness of what is around and beside them of natural 
beauty or productiveness. It is worth while to retrace the 
steps of Bartram, were it only to realize anew the eternal 
truth of our poet's declaration, that 

" To him who in the love of nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A varied language." 

It was on the 3d of July, 1743, that John Bartram set 
out, with a companion, from liis home on the Schuylkill. His 
narrative of that summer journey from the vicinity of Phila- 
delphia to Lake Ontario, reads like the journal of some intel- 
ligent wayfarer in the far West ; for the plants and the ani- 



376 AMERICA AND HEE COIIMENTATOKS. 

mals, the face of the country, the traveller's expedients, the 
Indian camps, and the isolated plantations, bring before us a 
thinly scattered people and wild region, whereof the present 
features are associated with all the objects and influences of 
civilization. Flocks of wild turkeys and leagues of wild 
grass are early noted ; the variety and character of the trees 
afford a constant and congenial theme ; swamps, ridges, hol- 
lows alternate ; chestnuts, oaks, pines, and poplars are silent 
but not unwelcome comrades ; snakes, as usual, furnish curi- 
ous episodes : Bartram observed of one, that he " contracted 
the muscles of his scales when provoked, and that, after the 
mortal stroke, his splendor diminished." He remarks, at one 
place, " the impression of shells upon loose stones ; " he is 
annoyed by gnats ; and, in an Indian lodge, " hung up his 
blanket like a hammock, that he may lie out of fleas." (He 
lingers in an old aboriginal orchard w^ell stocked with fruit 
trees ; swims creeks, coasts rivers, lives on duck, deer, and 
" boiled squashes cold ; " smokes a pipe — " a customary civil- 
ity," he says, " when parties meet." Here he finds " excellent 
flat whetstones," there "an old beaver dam;" now "roots 
of ginseng," and again "sulphurous mud;" one hour he is 
drenched with rain, and another enraptured by the sight of a 
magnolia ; here refreshed by the perfume of a honeysuckle, 
and there troubled by a yellow wasp. No feature or phase 
of nature seems to escape him. He notes the earth beneath, 
the vegetation around, and the sky above ; fossils, insects, 
Indian ceremonies, flowers ; the expanse of the " dismal wil- 
derness," the eels roasted for supper, and the moss and fim- 
gus as well as locusts and caterpillars. He travelled on foot 
to the Onondaga, and paddled down in a bark canoe to the 
Oneida, " down which the Albany traders come to Oswego." 
He stops at a little town thereabout " of four or five cabins," 
where the people live " by catching fish and assisting the 
Albany people to haul their bateaux." In this region of 
railways and steamboats, such were then the locomotive 
facilities. Nor less significant of its frontiei- Avilderness is 
Bartram's description of the spot which has long flourished 



AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WKITERS. 377 

as the grain depot and forwarding mart of "Western New 
York, where immense warehouses line the river, and fleets of 
barges, steamers, and schooners chister along the lake shoi'e. 
Oswego is identified Avith his j^icture mainly by the topogra- 
phy. " On the point formed by the entrance of the river 
stands the fort, or Trading Castle. It is a strong stone house, 
encompassed by a stone wall twenty feet high and one hun- 
dred and twenty paces round, built of large square stones 
very curious for their softness. I cut my name in it with my 
knife. The town consists of about se"venty log houses, of 
which half are in a row near the river ; the other half oppo- 
site to them, on the other side of a fair, where two streets 
are divided by a row of posts in the midst, where each Indian 
has his house to lay his goods, and where any of the traders 
may traffic with him. This is surely an excellent regulation 
for preventing the traders from imposing on the Indians. 
The chief officer in command at the castle keeps a good look- 
out to see when the Indians come down the lake with their 
poultry and furs, and sends a canoe to meet them, which con- 
ducts them to the castle, to prevent any person enticing them 
to put ashore privately, treating them with spirituous liquors, 
and then taking that opportimity of cheating them. Oswego 
is an infant settlement made by the province of New York, 
with the^noble view of gaining to the crown of Great Britain 
the command of the five lakes ; and the dependence of the 
Indians in their neighborhood to its subjects, for the benefit 
of the trade upon them, and of the rivers that empty them- 
selves into them. At present the whole navigation is carried 
on by Indian bark canoes ; but a good Englishman cannot be 
withoiit hopes of seeing these great lakes one day accustomed 
to English navigation. It is true, the famous Fall of Niagara 
is an insurmountable barrier to all passage by water from the 
Lake Ontario into the Lake Erie. The honor of first discov- 
ering these extensive fresh-water seas is certainly due to the 
French. The traders from New York come hither up the 
MohaAvk River, but generally go by land from Albany to 
Schenectady ; about twenty miles from the Mohawk the car- 



378 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

riage is but three miles to the river, that falls into the Oneida 
Lake, which discharges itself into the Onondaga River. It 
is evident, from the face of the earth, that the water of Lake 
Ontario has considerably diminished." 

It is interesting to conti*ast the vague and timid conjec- 
tures of Bartram with the subsequent facts in the develop- 
ment of that intercourse between the lakes, the far interior, 
and the seacoast, whence dates so much of the commercial 
and agricultural prosperity not only of the State of New 
York, but of the metropolis, and the vast regions of the 
West. Bartram observed, at Oswego, " a kitchen garden and 
a graveyard to the southwest of the castle," which reminds 
him that " the neighborhood of this lake is esteemed un- 
healthful." This opinion, however, refers only to a large 
swampy district, and not to the elevated site of the present 
town. Draining and population have long since redeemed 
even the low lands from this insalubrity ; and now, in conse- 
quence of the constant winds from that immense body of 
pure water, Oswego enjoys a better degree of health than 
any place in Western New York. Its summer climate is 
preferable to that of any inland city of the State. Bartram 
notes many traits of Indian life there — the girls playing with 
beans, and the squaws addicted to rum, and " drying huckle- 
berries." As usual, he expatiates on the trees, and especially 
admires specimens of the arbor vita? and white lychiims. 
The last entry in this quaintly pleasing journal is characteris- 
tic of the writer's domestic and religious faith, and of the 
adventurous nature of a tour which then occupied seven or 
eight weeks, and is now practicable in a few hours. Under 
date of August 19th, he writes: "Before sunset I had the 
pleasure of seeing my own home and family, and found them 
in good health ; and with a sincere mind I returned thanks to 
the A^iiiighty Power that had preserved ns all." 

At an advanced age Bartram embarked at Philadelphia 
for Charleston, S. C, and went thence, by land, through a 
portion of Carolina and Georgia, to St. Augustine, in Florida. 
While there, he received the appointment of botanist and 



AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 3T9 

naturalist to the king of England, with directions to trace 
the San Juan River to its source. Leaving St. Augustine, he 
embarked in a boat at Picolata, ascended and descended that 
beautiful river nearly four hundred miles, making careful 
observations not only as to distances, width, depth, currents, 
shores, cfcc, but recording all the physical facts, vegetable 
and animal. The full and accurate report thereof he sent to 
the Board of Trade and Plantations, in England. The labor 
of love this exploration proved to him, may be imagined 
from the enthusiastic terms in which Florida, its coast, its 
flowers, and its climate, are described by subsequent naturalists, 
especially Audubon and Agassiz. The latter thinks the com- 
bination of tropical and western products and aspects there 
unrivalled in the world. It is, indeed, a paradise for the 
naturalist, from its wonderful coral reefs to its obese turtles, 
and from its orange groves, reminding the traveller of Sicily, 
to its palms, breathing of the East. When old John Bar- 
tram, in his lonely boat, glided amid its fertile solitudes, it 
was a virgin soil, not only to the step of civihzation, but the 
eye of science ; and later and far more erudite students of 
nature have recognized the honest zeal and intelligent obser- 
vation wherewith the venerable and assiduous botanist of the 
Schuylkill recorded the wonders and the beauty of the scene. 
But it was amid his farm and flowers that Bartram appeared 
to memorable advantage. His manners, habits, and appear- 
ance, his character and conversation, seem to have em- 
bodied, in a remarkable manner, the idea of a rural citizen of 
America as cherished by the republican enthusiasts of Eu- 
rope. The comfort, simplicity, self-respect, native resom'ces, 
and benign faith and feeling incident to a free country life^ 
religious education, and a new land, were signally manifest in 
the home of the Quaker botanist. A Russian gentleman, 
who visited him in 1769, describes these impressions in a let- 
ter. He was attracted to Bartram's house from knowing him 
as a correspondent of French and Swiss botanists, and even 
of Queen Ulrica, of Sweden. Approaching his home, the 
neatness of the buildings, the disposition of fields, fences, 



380 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 

and trees, the perfect order and the prosperous industry ap- 
parent, won the stranger's heart at a glance. Nor was he 
less charmed with the s;reetini? he received from " a woman 
at the door, in a simple but neat dress," in answer to his in- 
quiry for the master. " If thee will step in and take a chair, 
I will send for him." He preferred walking over the farm. 
Following the Schuylkill, as it wound among the meadows, 
he reached a place where ten men were at work, and asked 
for Mr. Bartram ; whereupon one of the group, " an elderly 
man, with wide trousers and a large leather apron on, said, 
" My name is Bartram ; dost thee want me ? " " Sir," reiDlied 
the visitor, " I came on purpose to converse, if you can be 
spared from your labor." " Very easily," he replied ; and, 
returning to the house, the host changed his clothes, re- 
appeared, conducted his guest to the garden, and they j)assed 
many hours in a conversation so delectable, that the foreign 
visitor grows enthusiastic in his delight at this unique co'mbi- 
nation of labor and knowledge, simplicity of life and study 
of nature. One remark of Bartram's recalls a similar one of 
Sir Walter Scott's, as to the best residts of literary fame ; 
and it is a striking coincidence in the experience of two of 
nature's noblemen, so widely separated in their pursuits and 
endowments : " The greatest advantage," observed the rural 
philosopher to his Russian visitor, " which I receive from 
what thee callest my botanical fame, is the pleasure which it 
often procures me in receiving the visits of friends and for- 
eigners." Summoned to dinner by a bell, they entered a 
large hall where was spread a long table, occupied, at the 
lower end, by negroes and hired men, and, at the other, by 
the family and their guest. The venerable father and his 
wife " declined their heads in prayer " — which " grace before 
meat," says the visitor, was " divested of the tedious cant of 
some, and ostentatious style of others." Nor was he less 
charmed with the plain but substantial fare, the cordial man- 
ners, the amenities of the household, and the dignity of its 
head. Madeira was produced ; an ^^olian harp vibrated me- 
lodiously to the summer breeze ; and they talked botany and 



AMERICAJST TEATELLKRS AND WEITEE8. 381 

agriculture to their heart's content. The knowledge of Bar- 
tram surprised his auditor. He found a coat of arms amid 
all this primitive life, and learned that it was possible to unite 
the simplicity of American wdth the associations of European 
domiciles. To him, the scene and the character whence ema- 
nated its best charm, were a refreshing novelty ; and he 
endeavors to solve the mystery by frankly questioning his 
urbane host, whose story was clear enough. " ' What a 
shame,' said my mind, or something that inspired my mind," 
observed the latter, in explaining the first impulse to his 
career, " ' that thou shouldst have employed so many years in 
tilling the earth, and destroying so many flowers and plants, 
without being acquainted with their structure and their 
uses.' By steady application," he added, " for several years, 
I have acquired a pretty general kno^\'ledge of every plant 
and tree to be found on this continent." But it was the social 
phenomena of Bartram's house that impressed " the stranger 
within his gates," not less than the " pursuit of knowledge 
under difficulties ; " the skilful method of the farming opera- 
tion ; the deference, without servility, of the w^orkitien ; the 
gentle bearing of the negroes, and the serene order and dig- 
nity, yet cheerfulness of the household, struck the habitue 
of courts as a new phase of civilization. He became enam- 
ored of the Friends, attributing much of what he admired in 
Bartram and his surroundings to their influence. He so- 
journed among them in the vicinity, attended their meetings, 
and, after two months thus passed, declared " they were the 
golden days of my riper years." Few and far between are 
such instances of primitive character and association now 
exhibited to the stranger's view in our over-busy and ex- 
travagant land. It is pleasant to look back upon those days, 
and that venerable, industrious, benign philosopher ; to re- 
member his pleasant letters to and from Franklin, Bard, 
Logan, Catesby, and Golden at home, and Gronovius, Sir 
Hans Sloane, CoUinson, and Fothergill abroad ; the medal 
he I'eceived from "a society of gentlemen in Edinburgh;" 
the seeds he sent IMichaux and Jefierson ; the books sent him 



382 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 

by Linnaeus. It is pleasant to retrace that peaceful and wise 
career to its painless and cheerful close — the career of one 
whose great ambition was the hope, as he said, " of discover- 
ing and introducing into my native coimtry some original 
productions of nature which might be useful to society ; " 
and who could honestly declare, " My chief happiness con- 
sisted in tracing and admiring the infinite power, majesty, 
and perfection of the great Almighty Creator." Philosopher 
as he was, he never coveted old age ; di'eaded to become a 
burden ; hoped " there would be little delay when death 
comes ; " and deemed the great rule of life " to do justice, 
love mercy, and walk humbly before God." Cheerful and 
active to the age of seventy-eight, he died content, Septem- 
ber 22, 1V77. His name stands next to Franklin's in the 
record of the American Philosoijhical Society. The war of 
the Revolution shortened his days ; as the approach of the 
royal army, after the battle of BrandyT\dne, agitated him 
with fear that his " darling garden," the " nursling of half a 
century," might be laid waste. 

Bartram was a genuine Christian philosopher. His health- 
ful longevity was mainly owing to his tempei^ance and out-of- 
door life, the tranquil pleasures he cultivated, and the even 
temper he maintained. Hospitable, industrious, and active,^ 
both in body and mind, he never found any time he could not 
profitably employ. Upright in form, animation and sensibil- 
ity marked his featiires. He Avas " incapable of dissimula- 
tion," and deemed " improving conversation and bodily exer- 
cise" the best pastimes. Meditative, a reader of Scripture, 
he was born a Quaker, but his creed was engraved by his 
own hand over the window of his study — a simple but fer- 
vent recognition of God. 

It is as delightful as it is rare to behold the best tastes 
and influence of a man reproduced and prolonged in his de- 
scendants ; and this exceptional trait of American life we 
find in the career and character of John Bartram's son 
William, who was born at the Botanic Garden, Kingsessing, 
Pennsylvania, in 1Y39, and died in 1823. One of his early 



AMEKICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 383 

tutors was Charles Thomson, so prominent in the Continental 
Congress. He began life as a merchant, but was formed, by 
nature, for the naturalist and traveller he became. A letter 
from John Bartram to his brother, dated in 1761, alludes to 
this son as if his success in business was doubtful : " I and 
most of my son Billy's relations are concerned that he never 
"v^rrites how his trade affairs succeed. We are afraid he doth 
not make out as well as he expected." Having accompanied 
his father in the expedition to East Florida, he settled on the 
banks of the St. John River, after assisting in the explora- 
tion of that region. In 1774 he returned to his home in 
Pennsylvania ; and soon after, at the instance of Dr. Fother- 
gill, of London, made a second scientific tour through Flor- 
ida. His observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians 
there made were written out in 1789, and have been recently 
reprinted from the original manuscript, by the American Eth- 
nological Society. He aided Wilson in his ornithological 
investigations, and Barton in his " Elements of Botany," of 
which science he was elected professor by the university of 
his native State. Dunlap the painter, and Brockden Brown 
the novelist, refer to him with interest ; and the former has 
left a personal description of him, as he appeared when vis- 
ited by the writer, whereby we recognize the identical sim- 
plicity of life, brightness of mind, industry, kindliness, and 
love of nature which distinguished his father. " His counte- 
nance," says Dunlap, " was expressive of benignity and hap- 
piness. With a rake in his hand, he was breaking the clods 
of earth in a tulip bed. His hat wa's old, and flapped over 
his face. His coarse shirt Avas seen near his neck, as he wore 
no cravat. His waistcoat and breeches were both of leather, 
and his shoes were tied with leather strings. We approached 
and accosted him. He ceased his work, and entered into con- 
versation Avith the ease and politeness of nature's nobleman." 
A similar impression was made upon another visitor in 1819, 
who informs us that the white hair of William Bartram, as 
he stood in his garden and talked of Rittenhouse and Frank- 
lin, of botany and of nature, gave him a venerable look. 



384 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

which was in keeping with his old-fashioned dress, his genial 
manners, and his candid and wise talk. He was elected pro- 
fessor of botany in the University of Pennsylvania in 1782, 
and " made known and illustrated many of the most cmious 
and beautiful plants of North America," as well as published 
the most complete list of its birds, before Wilson. " The 
latest book I know," wrote Coleridge, " written in the spirit 
of the old travellers, is Bartram's account of his tour in the 
Floridas." It was published in Philadelphia in 1791, and in 
London the following year.* The style is more finished than 
his father could command, more fluent and glowing, but 
equally informed with that genuineness of feeling and direct- 
ness of purpose which give the most crude A^Titing an inde- 
finable but actual moral charm. The American edition was 
" embellished with copperplates," the accuracy and beauty 
of which, however inferior to more recent illustrations of 
natural history among us, form a remarkable contrast to the 
coarse paper and inelegant type. These incongruities, how- 
ever, add to the quaint charm of the work, by reminding us 
of the time when it appeared, and of the limited means and 
encouragement then available to the naturalist, compared to 
the sumptuous expositions which the splendid volumes of 
Aixdubon and Agassiz have since made familiar. In the de- 
tails as well as in the philosophy of his subject, Bartram is 
eloquent. He describes the " hollow leaves that hold water," 
and how " seeds are carried and softened in birds' stomachs." 
He has a sympathy for the " cub bereaved of its bear 
mother ; " patiently watches an enormous yellow spider cap- 
ture a bumblebee, and describes the process minutely. The 
moonlight on the palms ; the notes of the mockingbird in 
the luxuriant but lonely woods ; the flitting oriole and the 



* " Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West 
riorida, the Cherokee Country, the extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, 
or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Choctaws ; containing an Ac- 
count of the Soil and Natural Productions of those Regions, together with 
Observations on the Manners of the Indians," embellished with copperplates 
(turtle, loaf, &c.), by William Bartram, Philadelphia, 1791, London, 1792. 



AsrEEICAN TKAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 385 

cooing doves ; the mullet in the crystal brine, and the moan 
of the surf at night ; the laurel's glossy leaves, the canes of 
the brake, the sand of the beach, goldfish, sharks, lagoons, 
parroquets, the cyjjress, ash, and hickory, Indian mounds, 
buffalo licks, trading houses, alligators, mosquitos, squirrels, 
bullfrogs, trout, mineral waters, turtles, birds of passage, 
pelicans, and aquatic plants, are the themes of his narrative ; 
and become, in his fresh and sympathetic description, vivid 
and interesting even to readers Avho have no special knowl- 
edge of, and only a vague curiosity about nature. The afflu- 
ence and variety in the region described, are at once apparent. 
Now and then, something like an adventure, or a pleasant 
talk with one of his hospitable or philosophical hosts, varies 
the botanical nomenclature ; or a fervid outbreak of feeling, 
devotional or enjoyable, gives a human zest to the pictures of 
wild fertility. Curiously do touches of pedantry alternate 
with those of simplicity ; the matter-of-fact tone of Robin- 
son Crusoe, and the grave didactics of Rasselas ; a scientific 
statement after the manner of Humboldt, and an anecdote or 
interview in the style of Boswell. It is this very absence of 
sustained and prevalence of desultory narrative, that make 
the whole so real and pleasant. The Florida of that day had 
its trading posts, surveyors, hunters, Indian emigrants, and 
isolated plantations, such as still mark our border settlements ; 
but nowhere on the continent did nature offer a more " infi- 
nite variety ; " and the mere catalogue of her products, espe- 
cially Avhen written with zest and knowledge, formed an 
interesting work, such as intelligent readers at home and 
abroad relished with the same avidity with which we greet 
the record of travel given to the world by a Layard or a 
Kane, only that the restricted intercourse and limited educa- 
tion of that day circumscribed the readers as they did the 
authors. 

In 1825 was published, from the original manuscript, 
" The Private Journal kept by Madame Knight ; or, A Jour- 
ney from Boston to New York in the year 1704." This lady 
was I'egarded as a superior person in character and culture. 
17 



386 AMERICA AJiTD HEK COMMENTATOES. 

She indulged in rhyme, and had a vein of romance, as is evi- 
dent from her descriptions of nature, especially of the effect 
of moonlight, and the aspect of the forest at night. This 
curious specimen of a private diary gives us a vivid and au- 
thentic description of the state of the country, and the risks 
and obstacles of travel in a region now as populous, secure, 
and easy of access and transit as any part of the world. A 
fortnight was then occupied in a journey which is now per- 
formed several times a day in seven or eight hours. It seems 
that the fair Bostonian, even at that remote period, tinctured 
with the literary proclivities that signalize the ladies of her 
native city to this day, had certain business requiring atten- 
tion at New Haven and New York, and, after much hesita- 
tion, formed the heroic resolution of visiting those places in 
person. The journey was made on horseback. She took a 
guide from one baiting place to another, and was indebted to 
the " minister of the town," to the " post," and relatives 
along the route, for hospitality and escort. She often j)assed 
the night in miserable inns — if such they can be called — and 
was the constant victim of hard beds, indigestible or unsa- 
vory food, danger from fording streams, isolated and rough 
tracks, and all the alarms and embarrassments of an " unpro- 
tected female " crossing a partially settled country. Narra- 
ganset was a pathless wild. At New Haven she notes the 
number and mischievousness of the Indians, and that the 
yoimg men wore ribbons, as a badge of dexterity in shooting. 
She satirizes the phraseology of the people there, such as 
" Dreadful pretty ! " " Law, you ! " and " I vow ! " and criti- 
cizes the social manners as faulty in two respects — too great 
familiarity with the slaves, and a dangerous facility of di- 
vorce ; yet, she remarks, though often ridiculous, the people 
" have a large portion of mother wit, and sometimes larger 
than those brought up in cities." Pumpkin and Indian bread, 
pork and cabbage, are the staple articles of food, varied, at 
" Northwalk," by fried venison. | Of Fairfield she says : 
" They have abundance of sheep, whose very dung brings 
them great gain, with part of which they pay their parson's 



AMERICAN TEAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 387 

sallery ; and they grudge that, preferring their dung before 
their minister." She is charmed with the " vendues " at New 
York, where they "give drinks;" and mentions that the 
" fireplaces have no jambs ;" and " the bricks in some of the 
houses are of divers colors, and laid in checkers, and, being 
glazed, look very agreeable." " Their diversions," she says' 
of the inhabitants, " is riding in sleys about three or four 
miles out of town, where they have houses of entertainment 
at a place called the Bowery." 

Nor, among the early explorers of New England, can we 
fail to remember the intrepid John Ledyard, Captain Cook's r 
companion and historiographer, and one of the bravest pio- 
neers of African travel. Born in 1751, he ran away from the 
frontier college of Hanover, and fraternized with the abo- 
riginal Six Nations in Canada. Returning to his native 
region, he cut down a tree, and made a canoe three feet wide 
and fifty long, wherein, with bear skuis and provisions, he 
floated down the Connecticut River, stopping at night, and 
reading, at inter%^als, Ovid and the Greek Testament. Inter- 
rupted in his lonely voyage by Bellows' Falls, he efiected a 
portage through the aid of farmers and oxen, and, continuing 
his course, reached Hartford. This exploration of a river 
then winding through the wilderness, was inspired by the 
identical love of adventure and thirst for discovery which 
afterward lured him to the North of Europe, around the 
world with Cook, and into the deserts of Africa. 

Captain John Carver traversed an extent of country of at 
least seven thousand miles, in two years and a hali^at a period 
when such a pilgrimage required no little courage and par 
tience. He was induced to undertake this long tour partly 
from a love of adventure, and, in no small degree, from pub- 
lic spirit and the desire to gain and impart \iseful informa- 
tion. Carver was to be seen at the reunions of Sir Joseph 
Banks, where his acquaintance with the natural productions 
of this continent made him a welcome guest ; and his strait- 
ened circumstances won the sympathy of that benign savan% 
who promoted the sale of his " Travels," which were pub- 



X' 



388 AMEKICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS. 

lished in London,* and passed through three editions. This 
work contains many facts of interest to economists and sci- 
entific men not then generally kno\^Ti. The narrative refers 
to the years 1766, '67, and '68. Carver also published a 
" Treatise on the Culture of Tobacco." The region of coun- 
try described by this writer was then attracting great inquiiy 
on account of the jirevalont theories regarding a Northwest 
Passage. Carver Avent from Boston to Green Bay via Albany, 
and explored the Indian country as far as the Falls of St. 
Anthony ; following, in a great degree, the course of Father 
Hennepin in 1680. He has much to say of the aborigines, 
their ceremonies, character and vocabulary, of the phe- 
nomena of the great lakes, and of the birds, fishes, trees, and 
reptiles ; although, as a reporter of natural history, some of 
his snake stories excited distrust. Carver's enterprise, intel- 
ligence, and misfortunes, however, commend him to favor- 
able remembrance. He was born at Stillwater, Connecticut, 
and was a captain in the French war. Dr. Lettsom wrote an 
interesting memoir of him, which was appended to the 
posthumous edition of his writings ; and it is a memorable 
tact, that the penury in which this brave seeker after knowl- 
edge died, as described by his biographer, in connection with 
his unrecognized claims as an etnployc of the English Gov- 
ernment, induced the estabUshment of that noble charity, the 
Literary Fund. 

One of the French legation in the United States, in 1781, 
requested Jefferson to afford him specific information in re- 
gard to the physical resources and character of the country. 
This course is habitiial with the representatives of European 
Governments, and has proved of great advantage in a com- 
mercial point of view ; while political economists and histori- 
cal writers have found in the archives of diplomacy invalu- 
able materials thus secured. M. Marbois could not have 
applied to a better man for certain local facts interesting and 

* " Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, in 1766-68," 
by John Carver, Captain of a Company of Provincial Troops in the late 
French War, 8vo., third edition, portrait, maps, and plates, London, 1781. 



AMERICAN TEAVELLEES AND WRITEES. 389 

useful in themselves, and as yet but partially recorded, than^.^ 
Thomas Jefferson, Avho was a good observer of nature, as 
far as details are concerned, and accurate in matters where 
taste and opinion were not essential. His love of such inqui- 
ries had led him to record whatever statistical knowledge or 
curious phenomena came under his observation. As a planter, 
he had amjsle opportunity to observe the laM'S of nature, the 
methods of culture, and the means of progress open to a cir- 
cumspect agriculturist. He had read much in natural history, 
and was fond of scientific conversation ; so that, with the 
books then at command, and the truths then recognized in 
these spheres, he was in advance of most of his countrymen. 
The inquiries of Marbois induced him to elaborate and 
arrange the data he had collected, and two hundred copies of • 
the work were privately printed, under the title of "Notes- 
on Virginia," * a bad translation of which was soon after 
published in Paris. The reader of Jefferson's collected 
writings, whose taste has been formed by the later models 
of his vernacular authors, wiU not be much impressed Avith 
his literary talents or culture. In eloquence and argumenta- 
tive poAver he was far inferior to Hamilton. His memoir of 
himself has little of the frank simplicity and 9ia'ive attraction /" 
that have made Franklin's Life a household book ; while the 
fame of the Declaration of Independence Av^olly eclipses any 
reuoAvn derived from the Avisdom and occasional vivacity of 
his correspondence, or the curious linowledge displayed in his 
" Notes " on his native State. The eminence of the Avriter in 
political history and official distinction, the extraordinary cir- 
cumstances amid which he lived and acted, the part he took 
in a great social and ciA'ic experiment, his representatiA^e 
character in the Avorld of opinion, the coincidence of his 
death with the anniversary of the most illustrious deed of his 
life, and Avith the demise of his predecessor in the Presidential 
office and political opponent, all throw a peculiar interest and 
impart a personal significance to what his pen recorded ; so 

* " Notes on the State of Virginia," 8vo., map, Loudon, IVS*?. 



390 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

that, although there is comparatively little of original scien- 
tific value in his " Notes on Virginia," they are a pleasing 
memorial of his assiduous observation, and are characteristic 
of his turn of mind and habits of thought. It has been 
justly said of the.vrork, that "politics, commerce, and manu- 
factures are here treated of in a satisfactory and instructive 
manner, but with rather too much the air of philosophy." 
The description of the Natural Bridge, and of the scenery of 
Harper's Ferry and the Shenandoah Valley, as well as of 
other remarkable natural facts, drew many strangers to Vir- 
ginia ; and the " Notes " are often qxioted by travellers, agri- 
culturists, and philosophers. 

Captain Imlay, of the American army, is considered the 
best of the early authorities in regard to the topography of 
the Western covmtry. The original London edition of his 
" Topographical Description of the Western Territory of 
North America," * is the result of observations made be- 
tween 1792 and 1797. The third edition is much enhanced 
in value as a reference, by including the works of Filson, 
Hutchins, and other kindred material. In 1793, this author 
embodied another and most interesting phase of his experi- 
ence in that then but partially known region, in a novel called 
^^'The Emigrants," which contains genuine pictures of life. 

The " Travels in New England and New York " f of 
Timothy Dwight are probably as little read by the present 
generation as his poetry ; and yet both, fifty or sixty years 
ago, exerted a salutary influence, and are still indicative of 
the benign intellectual activity of a studious, religious, and 
patriotic man, whose name is honorably associated with early 
American literature, as avcU as with the educational progress 

* " Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North Amer- 
ica," by Gilbert Imlay, second edition, with large additions, 8vo., with correct 
maps of the AYestern Territories, 1793. Comprises a valuable mass of mate- 
rials for the early history of the Western country, embodying the enti^works 
of Filson, Hutchins, and various other tracts and original narratives. 

f " Travels in New England and New York," by Timothy Dwight, illus- 
trated with maps and plates, 4 thick vols., 8vo., 1823. 



AlVIEBICAN TRAVELLERS AND "WRITEKS. 391 

and theological history of New England. A descendant of 
Jonathan Edwards, a chaplain in the army of the Revolution, 
a member of the Connecticut Legislature, farmer, clergy- 
man, scholar, patriot, and bard, whether giving religious 
sanction to his brave countrymen in th^ir struggle for free- 
dom, toiling for the support of his family, teaching, rhyming, 
talking, or filling, with assiduous fidelity, the office of Presi- 
dent of Yale College, Dwight was one of the most useful, 
consistent, and respected men of letters 'of his day in Amer- 
ica. Idolized by his pupils, admired by his fellow citizens, 
and the favorite companion of Trumbull, Barlow, and the 
elder Buckminster, his simple style of life harmonized nobly 
with his urbane self-res])ect, intellectual tastes, and public 
spirit. His revision of the Psalms of Watts was a service 
practically recognized by all sects. The conscientiousness 
which formed the basis of his character, not less than the 
exigencies of his life, promoted habits of versatile and in- 
domitable industry. In youth, his ardent nature found vent 
in verse, much of which, especially some heroic couplets, have 
the ring and emphasis of a muse enamored of nature and 
fired with patriotism. His vacations, while President of 
Yale, were devoted to travel, not in the casual manner so 
usual at the period, but with a view to explore carefully and 
record faithfully. It is true that, compared to the scientific 
tourists of our day, Dwight was but imperfectly equipped 
for a complete and minute investigation of nature ; but, 
keenly observant, intelligent, and honest, gloving knowledge 
for its own sake, and eager to diflTuse as well as to acquire 
practical information, we find in this voluntary choice of 
recreation, at that period, a signal evidence of his superior 
mind. 

Many comparatively unknown regions of New England 
and New York Dwight traversed on horseback, communica- 
ting the results of his journeys in letters, which were not 
given to the public until several years after his death. We 
know of no better reference for accounts of the prominent 
men and the economical and social traits of the Eastern 



392 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

States, at the period, than may he gleaned from Dwight'a 
Travels. They preserve some original features and foots 

' which a locomotive age has since swept away. They furnish 
an interesting picture of life in New England and New 
York, when the towns therein were scattered and lonely, the 
/agricultural resources but jjartially developed, and the primi- 
tive tastes and customs yet dominant. Although seldom 
read, this early record of travel over scenes so familiar and 
unsuggestive to us, will be precious to the future delineator 
of manners, and even to the speculative economist and phi- 
losopher. A future Macaulay would find in them many ele- 
ments for a picturesque or statistical description ; for in such 
/ details, when authentic and wisely chosen, exist the materials 
of history. Among the earliest modern accounts, at all elabt. 
orate, of the White Mountains, Lake George, Niagara, and 
the Catskills, are those gleaned by Timothy Dwight, in his 
lonely Avanderings at a time when, to travel at all, was to 

/ isolate oneself, and be inspired Avith an individual aim, and 
the " solitary horseman " was a significant fact, instead of a 
resource 'of fiction. It was Dwight's habit to take copious 
notes and accumulate local facts, which he afterward wrote 
out and illustrated at his leisure. His " Travels " were first 
published in 1821. Their range Aicould now be thought quite 
limited ; but, in view of the meagre facilities for moving 
about then enjoyed, and the comparative absence of enter- 
prise in the way of journeys of observation, these intelli- 
gent comments and descriptions must have been very xiseful 
and entertaining, as they are now valuable and agreeable. 
Robert Southey, whose literary taste was singularly catholic, 
and Avho had labored enough in the field of authorship to 
duly estimate everything that^pontributes to the use or beauty 
of the vocation, wrote of Dwight's " Travels," in the Quar- 
terly jRevlew : 

" The work before us, though the humhlest in its pretences, is 

the most important of his writings, and will derive additional value 

from time, whatever may become of his poems and sermons. A 

/ vTish to gratify those who, a hundred years hence, might feel curios- 



AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 393 

ity concerning his native country, made him resolve to preserve a 
faithful description of its existing state. He made notes, therefore, 
in the summer vacation tours, and collected facts on the spot. The 
remarks upon natural histor}^ are those of an observant and sagacious 
man, who makes no pretensions to science ; they are more interest- 
ing, therefore, than those of a merely scientific traveller." 

Here we have another striking illustration of the conser- 
vative worth of facts in literature over the fruits of specula- 
tion or of fancy, unless the latter are redeemed by rare 
originality. Only the most gifted poets and philosophers 
continue to be read and admired ; while the humblest gleaner 
among the facts of life and nature, if honest and assiduous, , 
is remembered and referred to with gratitude and respect. 

As Commissioner of the Revenue, TenchjCoxe, of Philadel- 
phia, investigated and wrote upon several economical interests / 
of the country, and, in 1794, published his " View of the United 
States of America," in a series of papers written in 17853:;^94.* 
There is much statistical information in regard to trade and 
manufactures during the period indicated. The progress of 
the country at that time is authentically described, and the 
resources of Pennsylvania exhibited. Two chapters of the 
work are curious — one on the " distilleries of the United 
States," and the other giving " information relative to maple /^ 
sugar, and its possible value in some parts of the United 
States." The facts communicated must have been useful to 
emigrants at that period ; and, in summing up the condition 
and prosj^ects of the coimtry, a remarkable increase of for- 
eign commerce, shijjbuilding, and manufactures, in the ten 
years succeeding the War of Independence, is shown. The 
author congratulates his fellow citizens that " the importation 
of slaves has ceased ; "• that " no evils have resulted from an 
entire separation of church and state, and of ecclesiastical 
from the civil power ;" that Europeans "have rather accom- 
modated themselves to the American modes of lifcj than pur- 
sued or introduced those of Europe ;" that no monarchy over 

*" " View of the United States of America," in a series of papers written 
between 1787 and 1794, by Tench Coxe, 8vo., Philadelphia and London, 
1795. 

17* 



394: AilERICA AND HER COlVrMENTATOES. 

" an equally numerous jDeople has been so well able to main- 
tain internal tranquillity;" and that the "terrifying reports 
of danger from Indians" are unfounded. The work is a 
/ valuable statistical landmark of national development. 

In the year 1810, a book on America* by a native author 
/ excited much attention, partly from the special facts it re- 
counted, and partly because of a humorous vein, wherein 
European criticisms and travellers' complaints were met and 
refuted. The volume was timely, in some respects quite able, 
and often piquant. The literary artifice adopted served also 
to win the curious. It was pretended that Liciquin, a Jesuit, 
during a residence in the United States, had written numer- 
ous letters descriptive of the country, and in reply to current 
aspersions by prejudiced visitors — a portion of this corre- 
spondence having been discovered on a bookseller's stall, at 
Antwerp, and the " packet of letters " being published on 
this side of the water as the work of some unknown for- 
eigner. A distinct account of political parties, about which 
great misapprehensions then prevailed in Great Britain, is 
given ; numerous falsehoods then prevalent regarding the 
social condition and habits of the people are exposed ; and 
the hypercritical and fastidious objections propagated by 
shallow \A'Titers are cleverly ridiculed ; while a more kindly 
iind just estimate of American manners and culture is 
/ affirmed. The idea of the book was excellent ; but its exe- 
cution is not commensurate therewith, being comparatively 
destitute of that literary tact and graceful vivacity essential 
to the complete success of such an experiment. It, however, 
served a good though temporary purposCj^ more adequately 
/' fulfilled by Walsh's " Appeal." In his account of American 
literature, the author, at that date, had but a meagre cata- 
logue to illustrate his position, Marshall's " Life of Washing- 
ton " and Barlow's " Columbiad " being most prominent. 
Perhaps the political information was the most important 
element of the work ; and the intimate acquaintance with our 

* " Inciquin the Jesuit's Letters, during a late Residence in the United 
States of America," New York, 1810, 8vo. 



AMERICAif TEAVELLEES AND WRITERS. 395 

system of government, and the appreciation of the social 
condition of the republic manifest throughout, suggest that, 
with the attraction of a more pleasing style, " Inciquin's Let- 
ters " might have claimed and won a more permanent inter- 
est. It soon became known that they were written by 
Chai'les J. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, a political litttrateur'' 
and well-known citizen, who has since figured in public life, 
and died within a few years. The London Quarterly, with 
characteristic vmfairness, assailed the M^ork, which malicious 
criticism was promptly answered by Paulding. 

The calumnies of the English bookwrights and reviewers 
were ably confuted also by Irving, D wight, and Everett ; but 
the most efficient and elaborate reply, at this time, emanated 
from Robert Walsh, whose industry in the collection of 
facts, practice as a writer, and familiarity with history and 
literature, made him an able champion. He had long enter- 
tained the idea of a carefully prepared Vork — historical, eco/' 
nomical, and critical — on the United States, and had arranged 
part of the materials therefor. A peculiarly bitter and im- 
just article, ostensibly a review of " Inciquin's Letters," 
induced Mr. Walsh to abandon, for the time, his intended 
work, in favor of a less elaborate but most seasonable one. 
He did not attach undue importance to these attacks, but, like 
all educated and experienced men, perceived that the wilful 
misrepresentations and vulgar prejudice with, which they 
abounded, insured their ephemeral reputation, and proved 
them the work of venal hands ; yet, in common with the 
best of his countrymen, he recognized, in the popularity of 
such shallow and often absurd tirades, in the demand as a 
literary ware of such aspersions upon the name, fame, and 
character of the republic, a degree of ignorance and preju- 
dice in England, which it became a duty to leave without 
excuse, by a clear and authentic statement of facts. Accord- 
ingly, his " Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain " * 

* " An Appeal from the Judgments of Great Britain respecting the Unit- 
ed States, &c., with Strictures, on the Calumnies of British Writers," by 
Kobert Walsh, 8vo., Philadelphia, 1819. 



396 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

appeared in 1819. Its political bias made it somewhat imac- 
ceptable to a portion of his countrymen ; and, with the more 
full exposition of our intellectual resources which the growth 
of American litei-ature has subsequently induced, it is obvi- 
ous that he might have made the argument in this regard 
more copious. But, as a whole, it was admirably done. 
Much of the testimony adduced is English ; and the chapters 
on the British maladministration of the colonies, on the hos- 
tility of the British Reviews, and on slavery, are of present 
significance and permanent interest. It was a timely vindica- 
tion of our country, and so absolutely fixed the lie of malice 
upon many of the flippant writers in question, and the bigotry 
of prejudice upon their acquiescent readers, that an obvious 
improvement was soon apparent, especially in the Reviews — 
more care as to correctness in data, and less arrogance in 
tone. The work is a landmark to which we can now refer 
with advantage, to estimate the degree and kind of progress 
attained by the United States at the period ; and.it serves no 
less efiectually as a memorial of the literary, political, and 
social injustice of England. 

_' In addition to Irving, IngersoU, Walsh, Everett, and 
Cooper, many of our citizens have " come to the rescue " 
abroad, in less memorable but not less seasonable and efficient 
ways. Through the journals of Europe, many a mistake has 
been corrected, many a prejudice dispelled, and many a right 
vindicated by public-spirited and intelligent citizens of the 
republic. In JBlacJcwoocVs Haf/azine, 1823-6, for instance, 
are several articles on American writers and subjects, wherein, 
with much critical nonchalance and broad assertion, there are 
many facts and statements fitted to enlighten and interest in 
regard to this country. They were written by John^Neal, of 
Portland, whose dramatic but extravagant and rripidly con- 
cocted novels and poems, by their spirit and native flavor, had 
won their author fame, and gained him literary employment 
abroad; where he became a disciple of Bentham, and aspired, 
despite strong personal likes and dislikes, to be an impartial 



AMEKICAN TEAVELLERS AND WEITEK3. 397 

raconteur and reporter of his country, in a British periodical 
of wide circulation and influence. 

No Soixthern State has been so fully described by early 
and later writers, as Virginia. As the home of Washing- 
ton and Jefferson, it attracted visitors when the journey 
thither from the East was far from easy or convenient. 
The partially aristocratic origin of the first settlers gavt 
a distinctive and superior social tone to the region. Hunt- 
ing, political speculation, convivial courtesies, and the Epis- 
copal Church, were local features whereby the life of the 
Virginia planter assimilated witli that of English manorial 
habits and prestige. Moreover, a certain hue of romance 
invests the early history of the State, associated as it is with 
the gallantry' and culture of Sir Walter Raleigh and the self- 
devotion of Pocahontas. The very name of " Old Domin- 
ion " endeared Virginia to many more than her own children ; 
and that other title of " Mother of Presidents " indicates her 
prominence in our republican annals. Novelists have de- 
lighted to lay their scenes within her borders — to describe 
the shores of the Rappahannock, the ancient precincts of 
Jamestown, the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah, and the 
picturesque attractions of the Blue Ridge ; as well as to 
elaborate the traits of character and the phases of social life 
fondly and proudly ascribed to the country. Lovers of 
humor find an unique comic side to the nature of the Vir- 
ginia negro — one of whose popular melodies plaintively 
evinces the peculiar attachment which bound the domestic 
slave to the soil and family ; while the countless anecdotes 
of John Randolph, and other eccentric country gentlemen, 
indicate that the independent and provincial life of the 
planter there was remarkably productive of original and 
quaint characteristics. Naturalists expatiated on the wonders 
of the Natural Bridge; valetudinarians flocked to the Sulphur 
Springs ; and lovers of humanity made pilgrimages to Momit 
Vernon. ' There Washington, a young surveyor, became 
familiar with toil, exposure, and responsibility, and passed 
the crowning years of his spotless career ; there he was born, 



398 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

died, and is buried ; there Patrick Henry roamed and mused, 
until the hour struck for him to rouse, with invincible elo- 
quence, the instinct of free citizenship ; there Marshall drilled 
his yeomen for battle, and disciplined his judicial mind by 
study ; there Jefferson wrote his " Political Philosophy" and 
"Notes of a Naturalist;" there Burr was tried, Clay was 
born, Wirt pleaded, Nat Turner instigated the Southampton 
massacre, Lord Fairfax hunted, and John Brown was hung, 
Randolph bitterly jested, and Pocahontas won a holy fame ; 
and there treason reared its hydra head, and profaned the 
consecrated soil with vulgar insults and savage cruelty ; there 
was the last battle scene of the Revolution, and the first of 
the Civil War; there is Mount Vernon, Monticello, and 
Yorktown ; and there, also, are Manassas, Bull Run, and 
Fredericksburg ; there is the old graveyard of Jamestown, 
and the modern Golgotha of Fair Oaks ; there is the noblest 
tribute art has reared to Washington, and the most loath- 
some prisons wherein despotism wreaked vengeance on 
13atriotism ; and on that soil countless martyrs have offered 
i;p their lives to conserve the national existence. 

What Wirt, Kennedy, Irving, the author of " Cousin 
Veronica," and others, have written of rural and social life 
in Virginia, from the genial sports of " Swallow Barn " to 
the hunting frolics at Greenway Court — what Virginia was 
in the days of Henry and Marshall, she essentially appeared 
to Chastellux and to Paulding. It is nearly fifty years since 
the latter's " Letters from the South " * were written ; and, 
glancing over them to-day, what confirmation do recent 
events yield to many of his observations ! This is one of 
the unconscious advantages derived from faithful personal 
insight and records. However familiar the scene and obso- 
lete the book, as such, therein may be found the material for 
political inference or authentic speculation. " It seems the 
destiny of this country," writes Paulding from Virginia, in 
1816, "that power should travel to the West;" and again, 
" the blacks diminish in number as you travel toward the 
*' " Letters from the South," by a Northern Man. 
/ 



AMERICAN TEAVELLEKS AND WKITEKS. 399 

mountains ; " and elsewhere, " I know not whether you have 
observed it, but all the considerable States south of New 
York have their little distrusts and sej^arate local interests, or 
rather local feelings, operating most vehemently. The east 
and west section of the State are continually at sixes and 
sevens. The mountains called the Blue Ridge not only form 
the natural, but the political division of Virginia." Recent 
events have confirmed emphatically the truth of this observa- 
tion ; and what Paulding says of the people, agrees with 
previous and subsequent testimony — " gallant, high-spirited, 
lofty, lazy sort of beings, much more likely to spend money 
than to earn it." We have noted the evidence of earlier 
travellers as to the decadence of slavery in Virginia, before ' 
the invention of the cotton-gin made the institution profit- 
able ; and our own countryman, writing nearly fifty years 
ago, quotes the remark of a farmer's daughter : " I want 
father to buy a black woman ; but he says they are more 
trouble than they are worth." Even at that period, the 
primitive methods of travel continued through the Southern ,- 
country much as they are described by the French ofiicers 
who made visits to the South immediately after or during 
the Revolutionary war. " Travellers' Rests," says Paulding, 
" are common in this part of the world, where they receive 
pay foi* a sort of family fare provided for strangers. The 
house, in frequent instances, is built of square pine logs lap- 
ping at the four corners, and the interstices filled up with 
little blocks of wood plastered over and cemented." The 
ridges of mountain ribbed with pine trees, the veins of cop- 
per and iron revealed by the oxydated soil, the nutritious 
"hoecake," the marvellous caves and Natural Bridge, the 
comical negroes, the salubrious mineral springs, the occa- 
sional hunts such as cheered the hospitable manor of Fairfax, 
the conclaves of village politicians, the horse racing, cock 
fighting, the hard drinking, the famous " reel " of the dan- 
cers and turkey shooting of the riflemen, were then as chai'ac- 
teristic of the Old Dominion as when the judicial mind of 
her Marshall, the eloquence of her Henry, the eccentricities 



400 AMEKICA AND HEE COMMENTATOES. 

of her Randolph, or the matchless patriotism of her Wash- 
ington made her actual social life illustrious. The field of 
Yorktown, the memorable " Raleigh tavern," and the ubiqui- 
tous " first family," had not ceased to be favorite landmarks 
and jokes, any more than tobacco the staple or slavery the 
problem of this fertile but half-developed region and incon- 
gruous community. 

Paulding gave vent to his indignant patriotism, when tlie 
second war with England broke out, in " The Diverging His- 
torv of John Bull and Brother Jonathan," * in the manner of 
Arbuthnot. In this work, the two countries are made to 
figure as individuals, and the difliculties between the two 
nations are exhibited as' a family quarrel. England's course 
is the subject of a severe but not acrimonious satire. It was 
republished abroad and illustrated at home, and the idea still 
further developed in a subsequent story entitled " Uncle Sam 
and his Boys." 

A visit to Ohio from New England was formidable as 
late as 1796, when Morris Cleveland, whose name is now 
borne by the city where then spread a wilderness, accompa- 
nied the survey as agent of those citizens of Connecticut to 
whom she gave an enormous land grant in Ohio, to indemnify 
them for the loss of their property destroyed by*the British 
during the Revolution. The party ascended the Mohawk in 
bateaux, which they carried over the " portage " of Little 
Falls to Fort Stanwix, now Rome, where there was another 
portage to Wood Creek, wliich empties into Oneida Lake ; 
thence they passed through its outlet and the Oswego River 
into Lake Ontario, following the south shore thereof to the 
mouth of the Niagara River ; crossing seven miles of port- 
age to Buftalo, and thence to the region of which Cleveland 
now forms the prosperous centre. The descendants of these 
landowners — some of whom yet may be found in the towns 
that sufiered from the enemy's incursions eighty years ago, 
such as New London, Groton, and Fairfield — if they possess 

* " John Bull in America ; or, New Munchausen," second edition, 18mo., 
pp. 228. The original and genuine edition. New York, 1825. 



AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 401 

any record of the hardships thus endured and the time con- 
sumed, might find a wonderful evidence of progress and 
growth, in the facility witli which they can now reach the 
same spot by a few hours of railway travel along the pic- 
turesque track of the Erie road. 

We must revert to such memorials to appreciate what 
" going West " implied forty or fifty years ago, and to under- ^ 
stand the interest which the narratives of travellers there 
then excited. Before this experience became familiar, there 
were two writers who enjoyed much popularity in the North 
and East, and were extensively read abroad, as pioneer de- 
lineators of life and nature in the Western States, when tha^ 
region fairly began its marvellous growth : these were Timo- 
thy Flint and James Hall. 

There are writers whose works lack the high finish and 
the exhaustive scope which insures them permanent cur- 
rency ; and yet who were actuated by so genial a spirit and 
endowed with so many excellent qualities, that the impres- 
sion they leave is sweet and enduring, like the brief but 
pleasing companionship of a kindly and intelligent acquaint- 
ance met in travelling, and parted with as soon as known. 
Those who, in youth, read of the West as pictured by Timo- 
thy Flint, though for years they may not have referred to his 
books, Avill readily accord him such a gracious remembrance. 
He wrote before American literature had enrolled the classic 
names it now boasts, and when it was so little cultivated as 
scarcely to be recognized as a profession. And yet a candid 
and sympathetic reader cannot but feel that, however defec- 
tive the products of Flint's pen may be justly deemed when 
critically estimated, they not only fulfilled a most useful and 
humane purpose at the time they were given to the public, 
but abound in the best evidences of a capacity for author- 
ship ; which, under circumstances more favorable to disci- 
pline, deliberate construction, and gradual development, 
would have secured him a high and permanent niche in the 
temple of fame. Flint had all the requisite elements for lit- 
erary success — uncommon powers of obser\^ation, a generous 



402 Al^IERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

tone of mind, habits of industry, a command of language, 
imagination, scientific tastes, and a vein of originality com- 
bined with a kindliness of heart that would honor and ele- 
vate any vocation. On the other hand, it was noi until the 
mature age of forty-fi^'e that he fairly embarked in author- 
ship. That business was far from profitable, and, to make it 
remunerative, he was obliged to write fast, and publish with- 
out revision. His health was always precarious. He had 
few of those associations whereby an author is encouraged in 
the refinements and individuality of his work by the exam- 
ple and critical sympathy of his peers. It is not, therefore, 
surj^rising that his siiccess varied in the different sjiheres of 
literary experiment ; that the marks oi haste, sometimes a 
desultory and at others a crude style, mar the nicety and 
grace of his productions ; and that many of these are more 
remarkable for the material than the art they exhibit. Yet 
such was the manly force, such the kindly, spirit and fresh 
tone of this estimable man and attractive writer, that he not 
only gave to the public a large amount of new and useful 
information, and charmed lovers of nature with a picturesque 
and faithful picture of her aspects in the West, then rarely 
traversed by the people of the older States, but it is conceded 
.that his writings were singularly efiective in producing a bet- 

/ ter mutual understanding between the two extremes of the 
country. For several years Timothy Flint was almost the 
only representative of the American authorship west of the 
Alleghanies. Travellers speak of an interview with him as 
an exceptional and charming social incident. When that long 
range of mountains was tediously crossed in stages ; when a 
visit to the West was more formidable tlian a passage across 
the Atlantic now ; and when material well-being was the 
inevitable and absorbing occupation of the newly settled 
towns along the great rivers, it may easily be imagined how 
benign an influence an urbane and liberal writer and scholar 

/ would exert at home, and how welcome his report of per- 
sonal experience would prove to older communities. Accord- 
ingly, Timothy Flint was extensively read and widely be- 



AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 403 

loved. A native of Massachusetts, and by profession a 
clergyman, he entered on a missionary life in the Valley of 
the Mississippi in 1815 ; sojourning in Ohio, Indiana, Ken- 
tucky, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, now as a teacher 
and now as a preacher ; at home in the wilderness, a favorite 
in society, winning children and hunters by his wisdom and 
eloquence, and endearing hmiself to the educated residents 
of St. Louis, New Orleans, or Cincinnati, by his liberal and 
cultivated influence. It is, perhaps, impossible to imagine 
how different these cities and settlements were before facility 
of communication had enlarged and multiplied their social 
resources ; but we have many striking evidences of the 
characteristics of each in Flint's writings. He wrote several 
novels, which are now little considered, and, compared with 
the present standard in that popular department of letters, 
would be found indifferent ; yet, wherever the author has 
di'awn from observation, he leaves a vital trace. In " Fran- 
cis Berrian," which is a kind of memoir of a New Englander 
who became a Mexican patriot, and in " Shoshonoe Valley," 
there are fine local pictures and touches of character obvi-"~ 
ously caught from his ten years' experience of missionary 
life. Flint wrote also lectures, tales, and sketches. He-^ 
edited magazines both in the North and West, and contrib- 
uted to a London jom-nal. But the writings which are chiefly 
stamped with the flavor of his life and the results of his 
observations — those which, at the time, were regarded as 
original and authentic, and now may be said to contain among 
the best, because the most true, delineations of the West — / 
are his " Condensed Geography and History of the Missis-/ 
sippi Valley," * and his " Recollections of Ten Years " 
(1826) residence therein. These works were cordially wel- 
comed at home and abroad. They proved valliable and inter- i 
esting to savant, naturalist, emigrant, and general readers y 
and, while more complete works on the subject have since 

* " History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley, with the Physical 
Geography of the whole American Continent," by Timothy FUnt, 2 vols, in 1, 
8vo., Cincinnati, 1832. 



404 AMEKICA AND HEK COMlVrENTATOES. 

appeared, the period which gave birth to them, and the 
character and capacity of their author, still endear and ren- 
der them useful. The London Quarterly was singularly 
frank and free in its commendation of Flint, whom it pro- 
nounced " sincere, humane, and liberal " on the internal evi- 
dence of these writings ; declaring, also, that the author 
indulged " hardly a prejudice that is not amiable." 

In 1840, on his way to his native town — Reading, m Mas- 
sachusetts — Flint and his son were at Natchez, when the 
memorable tornado occurred which nearly destroyed the 
place, and were several hours buried xuider the ruins. The 
father's health continued to decline, and, although he reached 
his early home and survived a few weeks, the summons that 
called his wife reached her too late. \ 

The peculiar value of Timothy Flint's accoimt of the 
remarkable region of whose history and aspect he wrote, 
consists in the fact that it is not the resvdt of a cursory sur- 
vey or rapid tour, but of years of residence, intimate contact 
with nature and man, and patient observation. The record 
thus prepared is one which will often be consulted by subse- 
quent writers. The circumstances, political and social, have 
greatly changed since our author's advent, nearly half a cen- 
tury ago ; but the features of nature are identical,^and it is 
pleasant to compare them with his delineation before modi- 
fied by the adorning and enriching tide of civilization. 
There is one portion of these writings that has a perma- 
ynent charm, and that is the purely descriptive. 'FHnt knew 
how to depict landscapes in words ; and no one has more 
graphically revealed to distant readers the shores of the 
Ohio, or made so real in our language the physical aspects 
of the Great Valley. 

Of native travellers, the unpretending and brief record 
called " The Letters of Hibemicus " * possesses a singular 
charm, from being associated with the recreative work of an 
eminent statesman, and with one of the most auspicious eco- 

* " Letters on the Natural History and Internal Resources of .tiie State 
of New York," by Hibemicus, New York, 1822, 18mo. 



/ 



AMERICAN TEAVELLEES AND WEITERS. 405 

nomical acliieveinents which ever founded and fostered the 
prosperity of a State and city. When De Witt Clinton ex- 
plored the route of the Erie Canal, he communicated his 
wayside observations in a series of familiar epistles, wherein 
the zest of a naturalist, the ardor of a patriot, and the humor 
of a genial observer are instinctively blended. 

" This account of his exj^loration of Western ■ New 
York,* which originally appeared in one of the journals of 
the day, oifers a wonderful conti'ast to our familiar experi- 
ence. Then, to use his own language, ' the stage driver was 
a leading beau, and the keeper of a turnpike gate a man of 
consequence.' Our three hours' trip from New York to 
Albany was a voyage occupying ten times that period. At 
Albany stores were laid in, and each member of the commis- 
sion provided himself with a blanket, as caravans, ui our 
time, are equipped at St. Louis for an expedition to the 
Rocky Mountains. Here they breakfast at a tollkeeper's, 
there they dine on cold ham at an isolated farmliouse ; now 
they mount a baggage wagon, and now take to a boat too 
small to admit of sleeping afccommodations, which leads them 
constantly to regret their ' unfortimate neglect to provide 
marquees and camp stools ; ' and more than six weeks are 
occupied in a journey which now does not consume as many 
days. Yet the charm of })atient observation, the enjoyment 
of nature, and the gleanings of knowledge, caused what, in 
our locomotive era, would seem a tedious pilgrimage, to bs/^ 
fraught with a pleasure and advantage of which our flying . 
toui'ists over modern railways never di'eam. We perceive, 
by the comparison, that what has been gained in speed is 
often lost in rational entertainment. The traveller who 
leaves New York in the morning, to sleep at night under the 
roar of Niagara, has gathered nothing in the magical transit 
but dust, fatigue, and the risk of destruction ; while, in that ^ 
deliberate progress of the canal enthusiast, not a phase of 
the landscape, not an historical association, not a fruit, min- 
eral, or flower was lost to his view. He recognizes the be- 
* From the author's " Biographical and Critical Essays." y^ 



406 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

nign provision of nature for sugar, so far from the tropics, 
by the sap of the maple ; and for salt, at such a distance 
from the ocean, by the lakes that hold it in solution near 
Syracuse. At -Geddesburg he recalls the valor of the Iro- 
quois, and the pious zeal of the Jesuits ; at Seneca Lake he 
watches a bald eagle chasing an osprey, who lets his captive 
drop • to be grasped in the talons of the king of birds ; the 
fields near Aurora cheer him with the harvests of the ' finest 
wheat country in the Avorld.' At one place he is regaled 
with salmon, at another with fruit, peculiar in flavor to each 
locality ; at one moment he pauses to shoot a bittern, and 'at 
another to examine an old fortification. The capers and pop- 
pies in a garden, the mandrakes and thistles in a brake, the 
bluejays and woodpeckers of the ^rove, the bullet marks in 
the rafters of Fort Niagara, tokens of the siege under Sir 
Wilham Johnson, the boneset of the swamp, a certain remedy 
for the local fever, a Yankee exploring the coimtry for lands, 
the croaking of the bullfrog and the gleam of the firefly, 
Indian men spearing for fish, and girls making wampum — 
these and mnumerable other scerres and objects lure liim into 
the romantic vistas of tradition, or the beautiful domain of 
natural science ; and everywhere, he is inspired by the patri- 
otic survey to announce the as yet unrecorded promise of the 
soil, and to exult in the limitless destiny of its people. If 
there is a striking diversity between the population and facili- 
ties of travel in this region as known to us and as described 
by him, there is in other j^oints a not less remarkable identity. 
Rochester is now famed as the source of one of the most 
prolific superstitions of the age ; and forty yehrs ago there 
resided at Crooked Lane, Jemima Wilkinson, whose follow- 
ers believed her the Saviour incarnate. Clinton describes her 
equipage — ' a plain coach with leather curt^-ins, the back in- 
scribed with her initials and a star.' The orchards, poultry, 
cornfields, gristmills noted by him, still characterize the 
region, and are indefinitely multiplied. The ornithologist, 
however, would miss whole species of birds, and the richly- 
veined woods must be sousrht in less civilized districts. The 



AMEEICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 407 

prosperous future which the varied products of this district 
foretold, has been more than realized ; with each successive 
improvement in the means of communication, villages have 
swelled to cities ; barges and freight cars with lumber and 
flour have crowded the streams and rails leading to the me- " 
tropolis ; and, in the midst of its rural beauty, and gemmed 
with peerless lakes, the whole region has, according to his 
prescient conviction, annually increased in commerce, popula- 
tion, and refinement. 

A more noble domain, indeed, wherein to ^exercise such 
administrative genius, can scarcely be imagined than the 
State of New York. In its diversities of surface, water, 
scenery, and climate, it may be regaMed, more than any 
other member of the confederacy, as typical of the Union. 
The artist, the topographer, the man of science, and the agri- / 
culturist, can find within its limits all that is most character- 
istic of the entire country. In historical incident, variety of 
immigrant races, and rapid development, it is eqi;ally a rep- 
resentative State. There spreads the luxuriant Mohawk Val- 
ley, whose verdant slopes, even when covered with frost, the 
experienced eye of Washington selected for purchase as the 
best of agricultural tracts. There were the famed hunting 
grounds of the Six Nations, the colonial outposts of the fur 
trade, the vicinity of Frontenac's sway, and the Canada wars, 
the scenes of Andre's capture, and Burgoyne's surrender. 
There the very names of forts embalm the fame of heroes. 
There lived the largest manorial proprietors, and not a few 
of the most eminent Revolutionary statesmen. There Ful- 
ton's great invention was realized ; there flows the most 
beautiful of our rivers, towers the grandest moimtain range, 
and expand the most picturesque lakes ; there thunders the 
sublimest cataract on earth, and gush the most salubrious 
spas ; while on the seaboard is the emporium of the Western 
world. 

A poet has apostroj)hized North America, with no less 
truth than beauty, as ' the land of many waters ; ' and a 
glance at the map of New York will indicate their felicitous 



/ 



408 AMERICA AUB HEE COMMENTATOES. 

distribution within her limits. This element is the natural 
and primitive means of intercommunication. For centuries 
it had borne the aborigines in their fraU canoes, and aftei'- 
ward the trader, the soldier, the missionary, and the emi- 
grant, in their bateaux ; and, when arrived at a terminus, 
they carried these light transports over leagues of portage, 
again to launch them on lake and river. Fourteen years of 
Clinton's life were assiduously devoted to his favorite project 
of uniting these bodies of water. He was the advocate, the 
memorialist, the topographer, and financier of the vast enter- 
prise, and accomplished it, by his wisdom and intrepidity, 
without the slightest pecuniary advantage, and in the face of 
innumerable obstacles. Its consummation was one of the 
greatest festivals sacred to a triumph of the arts of peace 
ever celebrated on this continent. The impulse it gave to 
commercial and agricultural prosperity continues to this hour. 
It was the foimdation of all that makes the city and State of 
New York preeminent ; and when, a few years since, a thou- 
sand American citizens sailed up the Mississii^pi to commem- 
orate its alliance with the Atlantic, the ease and rapidity of the 
transit, and the spectacle of \'irgin civilization thus created, 
were but a new act in the grand drama of national develop- 
ment, whose opening scene occurred twenty-seven years be- 
fore, when the waters of Lake Erie blended with those of 
the Hudson. 

The immense bodies of inland water, and the remarkable 
fact that the Hudson River, iinlike other Atlantic streams 
south of it, flows unimpeded, early impressed Clinton with 
the natural means of intercourse destined to connect the sea- 
board of New York with the vast agricultural districts of 
the interior. He saw her peerless river enter the Highlands 
only to meet, a hundred and sixty miles beyond, another 
stream, which flowed within a comparatively short distance 
from the great chain of lakes. The very existence of these 
inland seas, and the obvious possibility of imiting them with 
the ocean, suggested to his comprehensive mind a new idea 
of the destiny of the whole country. Within a few years an 



AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 409 

ingenious geographer has pointed out, with singular acumen, 
the relation of "his science to histoiy, and has demonstrated, 
by a theory not less philosophical than poetic, that the dispo- 
sition of land and water in various parts of the globe prede- 
termines the human development of each region. The copi- 
ous ci\'ilization of Europe is thus traceable to the numerous 
facilities of approach that distinguish it from Africa, which 
still remains but partially explored; The lakes in America 
prophesied to the far-reaching vision of Clinton her future 
progress. He perceived, more clearly than any of his con- 
temporaries, that her development depended upon facilities 
of intercourse and communication. He beheld, with intui- 
tive wisdom, the extraordmary provision for this end, in the 
succession of lake and river, extending, like a broad silver 
tissue, from the ocean far through the land, thus bringing the 
products of foreign climes within reach of the lone emigrant 
in the heart of the continent, and the staples of those mid- 
land valleys to freight the ships of her seaports. He felt that 
the State of all others to practically demonstrate this great 
fact, was that with whose interests he was intrustedy It was 
not as a theorist, but as a utilitarian, in the best sense, that 
he advocated the imion by canal of the waters of Lake Erie 
with those of the Hudson. The patriotic scheme was fraught 
with issues of which even he never dreamed. It was apply- 
ing, on a limited scale, in the sight of a people whose enter- 
prise is boundless in every direction clearly proved to be 
available, a principle which may be truly declared the vital 
element of our civic growth. It was giving tangible evidence 
of the creative power incident to locomotion. It was yield- 
ing the absolute evidence then required to convince the less 
far-sighted midtitude that access was the grand secret of in- 
creased value ; that exchange of products was the touclistone 
of wealth ; and that the iron, wood, grain, fruit, and other 
abundant resources of the interior could acquire their real 
value only through facilities of transportation. Simple as 
these truths appear now, they were widely ignored then ; and 
not a few opponents of Clinton predicted that, even if he did 
18 



X 



410 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS. 

succeed in having flour conveyed from what was then called 
the ' Far West ' to the metropolis, at a small expense of time 
and money, the grass would grow in the streets of New 
York. The political economists of his day were thus con- 
verted into enemies of a system which, from that hour, has 
continued to guide to prosperous issues every latent source 
of wealth throughout the country. The battle with igno- 
rance and prejudice, whiqh Clinton and his friends waged, 
resulted in more than a local triumph and individual renown. 
It established a great precedent, offered a prolific example, 
and gave permanent impulse and direction to the public spirit 
of the community. The canal is now, in a great measure, 
superseded by the railway ; the traveller sometimes finds 
them side by side, and, as he glances from the sluggish 
stream and creeping barge to the whirling cars, and thence 
to the telegraph wire, he witnesses only the more perfect de- 
velopment of that great scheme by which Clinton, according 
to the limited means and agamst the inveterate prejudices of 
his day, sought to bring the distant near, , and to render 
homogeneous and mutually helpful the activity of a single 
State, and, by that successful experiment, indicated the pro- 
cess whereby the whole confederacy should be rendered one 
in interest, in enterprise, and in sentiment. ; 

Before the canal policy was realized, we are told, by its 
great advocate tliat ' the expense of conveying a barrel of 
flour by land to Albany, from the country above Cayuga 
Lake, was more than twice as much as the cost of transporta- 
tion from New York to Liverpool;' and the correctness of 
his financial anticipations was verified by the first year's ex- 
periment, even before the completion of the enterprise, when, 
in his message to the legislature, he announced that ' the 
income of the canal fund, when added to the tolls, exceeded 
the interest on the cost of the canal by nearly four himdred 
thousand dollars.' Few, however, of the restless excursion- 
ists that now crowd om' cars and steamboats, would respond 
to his praise of this means of transportation when used for 
travel. His notion of a journey, we have seen, differed essen- 



i AMERICAN TEAVELLEKS AND WKITEKS. 411 

tially from that now in vogue, whicli seems to aim chiefly at ' 
the annihilation of space. To a philosophic mind, notwith- 
standing, his views will not appear irrational, when he de- 
clares that fifty miles a day, ' without a jolt^' is his ideal of 
a tour — the time to be divided between observing, and, when^ 
there is no interest in the scenery, reading and conversation. 
' I believe,' he adds, ' that cheaper or more commodious 
travelling cannot be found.'-" 

James Hall wrote a series of graphic letters in the Port- 
folio — one of the earliest literary magazines, published in 
Philadelphia — which were subsequently collected in a volmne, 
and were among the first descriptive sketches of merit that 
made the Weskt familiar and attractive to the mass of read- 
ers. Born in Philadelj^hia in 1793, the author entered the 
army, and was engaged in the battle of Limdy's Lane, at the 
siege of Fort Erie, and on other occasions during the war of 
1812. Six years later he resigned his commission, and, in 
1820, removed to Illinois, where he studied and practised 
law, became a member of the legislature and judge of the 
circuit court. In 1833 he again changed his residence to 
Cincinnati, where he was long occupied as cashier of a bank, 
and in the pursuits of literatiwe. From his intimate ac- 
quaintance with the "Western country, his experience as a . 
soldier and a legislator, habits of intelligent observation, and '' 
an animated and agreeable style, he was enabled to write 
attractively of a region comparatively new to the literary 
public, and for many years his books were a popular source . 
of information and entertainment for those eager to know thft/ 
characteristics and enjoy the adventurous or historical ro- 
mances of the Western States first settled. He successively 
published letters from and legends of the West, tales of the 
border, and statistics of and notes on that new and growing ''^ 
region.* 

* "Legends of the "West," 12mo., Philadelphia, 1833. 
" Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the "West," 2 vols. 12mo., 
Philadelphia, 1835. 

"Notes on the "Western States," 12mo., Philadelphia, 1838. 
" The "Wilderness and the "War Path," 12mo., New York, 1846. 
" The "West, its Soil, Surface, and Productions," Cincinnati, 1848. 



412 AMEEICA AND HEE COMMENTATOKS. | 

With the progress of the country, and the leisure and its 
consequent literary taste which peace and prosperity induce, 
more deliberate works began to appear from native authors, 
which, without being hterally Travels, contain their best 
fruits, and possess a more mature attraction. The same 
causes led to critical observation and pleas for reform. Two 
books especially won not only attention, but fame : they 
were the productions of men of classical education, genial 
tastes, and public spirit, but diverse id subject as their au- 
thors were in vocation — one an eloquent lawyer, and the 
other an enterprising merchant. " Letters from the Eastern 
/States," by William Tudor, appeared in 1819. Their origi- 
nality and acuteness were at once acknowledged ; and, 
although the discussion of some questions now seems too 
elaborate, they are an excellent memorial of the times and 
the region they describe. Tudor was an efficient friend of 
the first purely literary periodical established in New Eng- 
land, one of the founders of the first public library, and the 
originator of the Bunker HiU Momunent. William Wirt, ia 
Virginia, at an early date exhibited the same love of elegant 
/^ letters, initiated a work similar in scope and aim to Addi- 
son's Spectator, and was not only an eloquent speaker and 
favorite companion, but a scholar of classic taste and literary 
aspirations. In the winter of 1803 he published, in the 
Argus — a daily journal of Richmond, Va., — "Letters of a 
British Spy," which were collected and issued in a book 
form,* Like L'ving in the case of " Knickerbocker," he re- 
sorted to the ruse of a pretended discovery of papers left in 
an iun chamber. The success of these " Letters " surprised 

* " The British Spy ; or, Letters to a Member of the British Parliament," 
written during a tour through the United States, by a Young Englishman of 
^/^Rank, 18mo., pp. 103, Newburyport, 1804. — " The above is the original edi- 
tion of the now celebrated letters of the British Spy, written by the American 
Plato, William Wirt. For the amount of what he has written, no American 
author has won so permanent and widespread a reputation. His story of the 
blind preacher is one of the most beautiful and affecting in the language. 
This book has gone through fifteen editions, and is destined to go through as 
many more." — Gowan's Catalogue. 



AMEBIC AN TKAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 413 

the author, as it would the reader of the present day unac- 
quainted with the circumstances. Superior in style to any > 
beUes-lettres work of the kind, of native origin, that had yet 
appeared, and analyzing the merits of several popular orators 
of the time, the book had a charm and interest for its first 
readers greatly owing to the rarity of an intellectual feast of 
domestic production. Besides his remarks on the eloquencoi 
of the forum and bar, Wirt discussed certain physical traits 
and phenomena with zest and some scientific insight, and 
gave incidental but graphic sketches of local society and 
manners. His reflections on the character of Pocahontas, 
and his portrait of the " Blind Preacher," are familiar as 
favorite specimens of descriptive writing. Although now 
little read, the "Letters of a British Spy" are a pleasing land- 
mark in the brief record of American l^erature, and give us y 
a not inadequate idea of the life and region delineated. In 
1812, an edition was published in London, with an apologetic 
preface indicative of the feeling then prevalent across the 
water in regard to all mental products imported from the • 
United States, aggravated, perhaps, by the nom de plume 
Wirt had adopted. The publisher declares his " conviction 
of its merit " induces him to ofier the work to the public, 
though "it is feared the present demand on the English 
reader may be considered more as a call on British courtesy 
and benevolence than one of right and equity." 

When our national novelist returned to America, after a 
residence of many years in Europe, he undertook to give his 
countrymen the benefit of his experience and reflections in 
the shape of direct censure and counsel. " The Monnikins " 
— a political satire — " The American Democrat," " Homeward 
Bound," " Home as Found," " A Letter to his Coimtrymen," 
and other productions in the shape of essays, fiction, and ^ 
satire, gave expression to convictions andTlarguments born of - 
sincere and patriotic motives and earnest thought. Li his 
general views. Cooper had right and reason on his side. 
What he wrote of political abuses and social anomalies, every 
candid and cultivated American has known and felt to be 



414 AMEKICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

true, especially after a visit to Europe. But the manner of 
conveying his sentiments was injudicious. Description, not 
satire, was his forte ; action, and not didactics, had given 
eelat to his pen ; hence his admirers believed he had mistaken 
his vocation in becoming a social and political critic ; while 
many were revolted by what they conceived to be a sweep- 
ing and unauthorized condemnation. Moreover, in offending 
the editorial fraternity, by a caricature of their worst quali- 
ties, he drew around himself a swarm of virulent protests, 
and thus was misjudged : the consequence was a series of, 
libel suits and a wearisome controversy. Now that the ex- 
aggerated mood and the gross misapprehensions therein in- 
volved, have passed away, we can appreciate the abstract jus- 
tice of Cooper's position, the manly spirit and the intelligent 
patriotism of his unfortunate experiments as a reformer, and 
revert to this class of his writings with profit, especially since 
the crisis he anticipated has been reached, and the logic of 
events is enforcing with solemn emphasis the lessons he un- 
graciously perhaps, but honestly and bravely, strove to im- 
press upon liis wayward countrymen. If ever an American 
had a right to assume the office of censor, it was Cooper. 
He had, soon after his arrival in Europe, taken up his pen 
in behalf of his country, and thenceforth advocated her 
rights, defended her fame, and brought to reckoning her 
ignorant maligners. His " Notions of the Americans " did 
much to correct false impressions abroad ; and its author was 
involved in a long controversy, and became an American 
champion and oracle, Avhose services have never yet been 
fully appreciated, enhanced as they were by his European 
popularity as an original American novelist. Well wrote 
Halleck : 

" Cooper, whose name is with his country's woven, 
First in her files, her pioneer of mind, 
A wanderer now in other climes, has proven 
His love for the young land he left behind." 

It requires a love of nature, an adventurous spirit, and an 
intelligent patriotism, such as, in these days of complex asso- 



AMERICAN TKAVELLEKS AND WKITEES. 415 

ciations and fragmentary interests, are rarely found in the 
same individual, to observe and to write with effect upon the 
scenes and the character of this republic — especially those 
parts thereof that are removed from the great centres of 
trade and society. Political economists there are who will 
patiently nomenclate the physical resources ; sportsmen who, 
can discourse with relish of the bivouac and the hunt, atfd 
their environment and incidents ; poetical minds alert and 
earnest in celebrating particular local charms : but the Amer- 
ican of education who delights in exploring the country and 
invoking its brief past in a historical point of view, while 
dwelling con amove upon its natural features, so as to pro- 
duce an animated narrative — who delights in the life and 
takes pride in the aspect, even when least cultivated, of his 
native land, is the exception, not the rule, among our authors. 
The reasons are obvious : for the scholar there is too little of 
that mysterious background to the picture which enriches it 
with vast human interest ; to the imaginative there is too 
much monotony in the landscape and the experience ; to the 
sympathetic, too little variety and grace of character in the 
people ; and the man who can be eloquent in describing 
Italy, and vivacious in his traveller's journal in France, and 
speculative in discussing English manners, will prove conjr- 
paratively tame and vague when a traveller at home — always 
excepting certain shrines of pilgrimage long consecrated to 
enthusiasm. He may have profoimd emotions at Niagara, 
confess the inspiration of a favorite seacoast, and expatiate 
upon the White Mountains with rapture ; but find a tour m 
any one section of the land more or less tedious and barren 
of interest, or, at best, yielding but vague materials for pen 
or talk. Exceptions to this average class, many and mem- 
orable, our survey of Travels in America amply indicates ; 
but the fact remains, that the feeling that inve_sts Scott's 
novels, Wilson's sketches, the French memoirs, the German ■' 
poets, the intense partiality, insight, and sentiment born of 
local attachment and national pride, has seldom impregnated 
our literature, especially that of travel j for the novels of 



416 AMEKICA AI^D HEE COMMENTATOES. 

Cooper, the poems of Bryant, and other standard produc- 
tions in more elaborate and permanent spheres, do not invali- 
date the general truth. Among the native writers who, from 
the qualities already mentioned, have known how to make the 
narrative of an American tour pleasant and profitable, is 
Charles Fenno Hoflman, whose " Winter in the West " is 
quite a model of its kind. It consists of a series of letters 
addressed to a New York journal, describing a journey on 
horseback in 1835.* There was the right admixture of poet- 
ical and patriotic instinct, of knowledge of books and of the 
world, and of the love both of nature and adventure, to make 
him an agreeable and instructive delineator of an experience 
which, to many equally intelligent travellers, would have 
been devoid of consecutive interest^ In his novels, tales, and 
verses, there is a positive American flavor, which shows how 
readily he saw the characteristic and felt the beautiful in his 
own country. To him the Hudson was an object of love, 
and the history of his native State a strong personal interest. 
Unspoiled by European travel, and fond of sport, of the 
freshness and freedom of the woods, and the independence 
incident to our institutions, he, although infirm, bore discom- 
forts with cheerfulness, easily won companionship, and de- 
lighted in exercise and observation. Accordingly, he notes 
the weather, describes the face of the country, recalls the 
Indian legends, speculates on the characters and modes of 
life, and discusses the historical antecedents, as he slowly 
roams over Eastern Pennsylvania, Michigan, Kentucky, Vir- 
ginia, and Illinois, with a lively tone and yet not without 
grave sympathy. Scenery is described with a robust and 
graphic rather tlian with a dainty and rhetorical pen, obvi- 
ously guided by an excellent eye for local distinctions and 
charms ; men and manners are treated with an acute, gen- 
eralized, and manly criticism ; the animals, the river craft, 
the flowers, the game, the origin and growth of towns, the 
aspect and resources of the country, are each and all conge- 
nial themes. He so enjoys the observation thereof, as to put 
* "A Winter in the West," by a New Yorker, 2 vols., New York, 1835. 



AilEKICAN TKAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 417 

his reader in relation with himself, as he did the diverse 
characters lie encountered in tavern, log house, military out- 
post, and drawing room. He is neither revolted by coarse- 
ness nor discouraged by inconveniences. He takes us socia- 
bly along a route now familiar to thousands who trav- 
erse it on railways with scarce a thought of the latent inter- 
est more tranquil observation and patient inquiry would 
elicit. At Detroit Ave are entertained by an historical epi- 
sode, and at Prairie du Chien with a veritable picture of 
military life, character, and routine in America. A conver- 
sation here, an anecdote there, a page of speculation now, 
and again one of description, something like an adventure 
to-day, and of curious observation to-morrow, beguile us / 
with so cheerful and intelligent a guide, that, at the end of 
the journey, we are surprised it yielded so many topics of 
reflection and scenes of picturesque or human interest. 

The statistics whereby the practical inquirer, and the 
agencies and examjjles whereby the social philosopher, may 
decide whether Cotton is king, may be found in the books ^ 
of Southern Travel in America written by Frederick Law ^ 
Olmsted. The actual economical results of slave labor upon 
the value of property, the comfort and the dignity of life 
and manners, mind, domestic economy, education, religion, 
social welfare, tone and tendency, may there be found, co- 
pious, speciiic, and authentic. What nature is in the Cot- 
ton States, and life also, are therein emphasized discreetly. 
How the solemn pine woods balmily shade the traveller ; 
how gracefully dangle the tylandria festoons in hoary grace ; 
how cheerily gleam the holly berries, and glow the negroes' 
fires ; how sturdily are gnarled the cypress knees ; how mag- 
nificent are the liveoaks, and luxuriant the magnolias, and 
desolate the swamps, and comfortless the dwellings, and reck 
less the travel, and shiftless the ways, and rare the vaunted 
hospitality, and obsolete the " fine old coimtry gentleman ; " 
and how proud and poor, precarious and unprogessive is the 
civilization inwoven with slave and adjacent to free labor, 
is narrated without dogmatism and in matter-of-fact terms, 
18* 



418 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

whence the economist, the humanitarian, the philosopher, the 
Christian, the reasonable man may infer and elaborate the 
truth, and the duty that truth iuvolves and demands.* ■''' 

More desultory in scope, but not less interesting as the 
genuine report of calm observation, are Bryant's " Letters 
of a Traveller," which are fresh, agreeable, and authentic 
local descriptions and comments, superior in literary execu- 
tion, and therefore valuable as permanent records in the 
literature of home travel.f 

An important department of American Travels, and for 
scientific and historical objects invaluable, is the record of 
/Government expeditions for military or exploring purposes, 
from the famous enterprises of 'Lewis and Clark to those of 
Simcoe, Stansbury, Kendall, Emory, Long, Marcy, Pike, Fre- 
mont, Bartlett, and )others. Every new State and Territory 
has found its intelligent explorer. The vast deserts and the 
Rocky Mountains, the Great Salt Lake, Oregon, the Ca- 
manche hunting grounds, Texas, the far Western aboriginal 
tribes, the climate, soil, topography, &c., of the most remote 
and uncivilized regions of the continent, have been thus ex- 
amined and reported, and the narratives are often animated 
by graphic and picturesque scenes, or made impressive by 
adventure, hardship, and intrepidity. Another remarkable 
class of books is the long list of those devoted to California, 
/ written and published within the last ten years, whereby the 
life, aspect, condition, scenery, resources, and prospects of 
that region are as familiar to readers in the old States as if 
they had explored the new El Dorado. 

* " The Cotton Kingdom, a Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Sla- 
very in the American Slave States," based upon three former volumes of Jour- 
/'neys and Investigations by the same author, by Frederic Law Olmsted, 2 vols. 
12mo., ■with a colored statistical map of the Cotton Kingdom and its Depend- 
encies. 

\ " Letters of a Traveller in Europe and America," New York, 12mo. — 
A discriminating critic observes of this work : " Mr. Bryant's style in these 
Letters is an admirable model of descriptive prose. Without any appearance 
of labor, it is finished with an exquisite grace. The genial love of nature 
and the lurking tendency to humor which it everywhere betrays, prevent its 
severe simplicity from running into hardness, and give it freshness and occa- 
Bional glow in spite of its prevailing propriety and reserve." 



AMEKICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 419 

The incidental records of American travel, such as may 
be found in the letters, diaries, and memoirs of our own civic /^ 
leaders and military or political heroes, are not the least 
characteristic or suggestive As a specimen, let us refer to 
the notes of our peerless Chief in New England, when on his 
Presidential tour. 

Here is a glimpse of Connecticut as it appeared to the 
practical eye of Washington in 1789, In his Diary, he says, 
under date of October 16th of that year: "About seven 
o'clock we left the widow Haviland's, and, after passing 
Horse Neck, six miles distant from Rye, the road through 
Avhich is hilly and immensely stony, and trying to wheels 
and carriages, we breakfasted at Stamford, which is six miles 
farther, at one Webb's — a tolerable good house. In this 
town are an Episcopal church and a meeting house. At Nor- 
walk, which is ten miles farther, we made a halt to feed our 
horses. To the lower end of this town sea vessels come, and 
at the other end are mills, stores, and an Episcopal and Pres- 
byterian churchi From hence to Fairfield, where we dined 
and lodged, is twelve miles, and part of it very rough road, 
but not equal to Horse Neck. The superb landscape, how- 
ever, Avhich is to be seen from the meeting house of the lat- 
ter, is a rich regalia. We found all the farmers busily em- 
ployed in gathering, grinding, and expressing the juice of 
their aj^ples. The average crop of wheat, they say, is about 
fifteen bushels to the acre, often twenty, and from that to 
twenty-five. The destructive evidences of British cruelty are 
yet visible both at Norwalk and Fairfield, as there are the 
chimneys of many burnt houses standing yet. The principal 
export from Norwalk and Fairfield is horses and cattle, salted 
beef and pork, lumber and Indian corn for the West Indies, 
and, in a small degree, wheat and flour." 

"Commenced my journey," he writes* on the 15th of 
October, 1789, " about nine o'clock, for Boston and the East- 
ern States." He did not reach that city until noon of the 

* "Diary from the 1st of October, 1789, until the 10th of March, 1790," 
printed by the Bradford Club from the original manuscripts, New York, 1858. 



420 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATORS. 

23d ; and it is curious to read of the frequent halts for meals, 
to feed the horses, or to pass the night, on a route we are 
accustomed to pass over in as many hours as days were then 
employed. Washington makes agricultural and topographi- 

/cal notes, and in many respects we recognize the same traits 
of industry, and identify the face of the country ; while in 
others the contrast is remarkable. 

He notes a luien manufacture at New Haven, white mul- 
berry " to feed silkworms " at Wallingford, and remarks that 
the silk culture, " except the weaving, is the Avork of private 
families, without interference with other business, and is 
likely to turn out a beneficial amusement." 

At Hartford, Colonel Wadsworth showed him the wool- 
len factory, and specimens of broadcloth. " I ordered a 
suit," he writes, '' and of the serges a whole piece, to make 
breeches for my servants." Continuing his journey, he ob- 
serves " the whole road from Hartford to Springfield is level 
and good, except being too sandy in places, and the fields 
enclosed with posts and rails, there not being much stone." 
He is met often by mounted escorts of gentlemen, is enter- 
tained by the local oflicials, and receives addresses from the 
towns. Of his impressions of the State, we may form an 
idea by the casual entries in his brief diary : " There is great 

/equality in the people of this State — few or no opulent men, 
"^^ and no poor ; great similitude in their buildings, the general 
fashion of which is a chimney always ofi stone or brick, and 
door in the middle, with a staircase fronting the latter, and 
running up the side of the former — two flush stones with a 
very good show of sash and glass windows ; the size gen- 
erally is from thirty to forty feet in length, and from twenty 
to thirty in width, exclusive of a back shed, which seems to 
be added as the family inci'eases. The farms, by the contigu- 
ity of the houses, are small, not averaging more than a hun- 
dred acres. They are worked chiefly by oxen, which have 
no other food than hay." 

At Portsmouth he " went in a boat to view the harbor. 
Having lines, we proceeded to the fishing banks and fished 



AMERICAN TKAVELLEES AND WEITEES. 421 

for cod, and only caught two. Dined at Mr. Langdon's, and 
drank tea there with a large party of ladies. There are some 
good houses here, but, in general, they are indifferent, and 
almost entirely of wood. On wondering at this, as the coun- 
try is full of stone and good clay for bricks, I was told thatj^,,.^ 
on account of the fogs and damps, they deemed them whole- 
somer." 

At Exeter, he writes, " a jealousy subsists between this 
town, where the legislature alternately sits, and Portsmouth ; 
which, had I known it in time, would have made it necessary 
to have accepted an invitation to a public dinner." 

" In Haverhill is a duck manufactory upon a small but 
ingenious scale." 

At Boston he went to an oratorio, and was entertained at 
FaueuU Hall, " dined in a large company at Mr. Bowdoin's, 
and went to an assembly in the evening, where " there were 
upward of a hundred ladies. Their appearance was elegant, 
and many of them very handsome." 

Another attractive branch of this subject may be found 
in commemorative addresses — a peculiar and prolific occasion ,- 
of local reminiscences and comparisons in America. Com- 
pare, for instance, the descriptions of New York by Mrs. 
Knight, Brissot, or Wansey, with those of Dr. Francis * or 
General Dix f in their historical discourses ; or the pictures^ 
of Albany by Mrs. Grant and Kalm, with the recollections 
thereof in his boyhood so genially imparted by the late 
Judge Kent ; J or Irving's epistolary account of his first 
voyage up the Hudson with his last trip to the Lakes, and we 
have the most complete historical contrasts and focal transi- 
tions, and realize by what means and methocis the vast social 
and economical changes have taken place. 

* " Old New York," a Discourse delivered before the New York Historical 
Society, by John W. Francis, M. D., LL. D., in commemoration of the Fifty- 
third Anniversary, New York, 1857. 

f " The City of New York, its Growth, Destiny, and Duties," a Lecture by 
John A. Dix, before the New York Historical Society, New York, 1853. 

:]: " An Address Delivered before the Young Men's Association of Albany, 
February *?, 1854," by William Kent, New York, 1854. 



422 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

Of the countless books of Western travel and adventure, 
one of the most spirited and authentic is Mrs. Kirkland's 
" New Home : Who 'U Follow ? " to which were subse- 
quently added her " Forest Life " and " Western Clearings." 
The " delightful humor and keen observation " of the former 
work made it an established favorite as a true reflection of 
life in the West at its initiatory stage. As a picture of 
travel in the same region, Washington Irving's " Tour on 
the Prairies " is the most finished and suggestive. ' It is 
an unpretending account, comprehending a period of about 
four weeks, of travelling and punting excursions upon the 
vast Western j)lains. The local features of this interest- 
ing region have been displayed to us in several works of 
fiction, of which it has formed the scene ; and more for- 
mal illustrations of the e^ensive domain denominated The 
West, and its denizens,, have been repeatedly presented to the 
public. But in this volume one of the most extraordinary 
and attractive portions of the great subject is discussed, not 
as the subsidiary part of a romantic story, nor yet in the des- 
ultory style of epistolary composition, but in the deliberate, 
connected form of a retrospective narration. When we say 
that the " Tour on the Prairies " is rife with the characteristics 
of its author, no ordinary eulogium is bestowed. His graphic 
power is manifest throughout. The boundless prairies stretch 
out inimitably to the lancy, as the eye scans his descriptions. 
The athletic figures of the riflemen, the gayly arrayed Indians, 
the heavy bufi'alo and the graceful deer, pass in strong relief 
and startling contrast before us. We are stirred by the bus- 
tle of the camp at dawn, and soothed by its quiet, or delighted 
with its picturesque aspect under the shadow of night. The 
imagination revels amid the green oak clumps and verdant 
pea vines, the expanded plains and the glancing river, the 
forest aisles and the silent stars. Nor is this all. Our hearts 
thrill at the vivid representations of a primitive and excur- 
sive existence ; we involuntarily yearn, as we read, for the 
genial activity and the j)erfect exposure to the influences of 
nature in all her free magnificence, of a woodland and ad* 



AMERICAJI TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 423 

venturous life ; the morning strain of the bugle, the excite- 
ment of the chase, the delicious repast, the forest gossiping, 
the sweet repose beneath the canopy of heaven — hoAV in- 
.viting, as depicted by such a pencil ! 

Nor has the author failed to invigorate and render doubly 
attractive these descriptive drawings, with the . peculiar light 
and shade of his own rich humor, and the mellow softness 
of his ready sympathy. A less skilful draughtsman would, 
perhaps, in the account of the preparations for departure 
(Chapter III.), have spoken of the hunters, the fires, and the 
steeds ; but who, except Geoffrey Crayon, would have been 
so quaintly mindful of the little dog, and the manner in which 
he regarded the operations of the farrier ? Plow inimitably <, 
the Bee Hunt is portrayed ! — and what have we of the kind 
so racy as the account of the Republic of Prairie Dogs, 
unless it be that of the Rookery in Bracebridge Hall ? 
What expressive portraits are the delineations of our rover's 
companions ! How consistently drawn throughout, and in 
what fine contrast, are the reserved and saturnine Beatte, and 
the vain-glorious, spriglitly, and versatile Tonish ! A golden 
vein of vivacious yet chaste comparison — that beautiful yet 
rarely well-managed species of wit — and a wholesome and 
pleasing sprinkling of moral comment — that delicate and 
often most efficacious medium of useful impressions — inter- 
twine and vivify the main narrative. Something, too, of 
that fine pathos which enriches his earlier productions, en- 
hances the value of this. He tells us, indeed, with com- 
mendable honesty, of his new appetite for destruction, which 
the game of the prairie excited ; but we cannot fear for the 
tenderness of a heart that sympathizes so readily with sufler- 
ing, and yields so gracefully to kindly impulses. He gazes 
upon the noble courser of the wilds, and wishes that his free- 
dom may be perpetuated ; he recognizes the touching instinct/ 
which leads the wounded elk to turn aside and die in retiracy ; 
he reciprocates the attachment of the beast which sustains 
him, and, more than all, can minister even to the foibles of 
a fellow being, rather than raar the transient reign of human 
pleasure.' 



424 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

A candid and earnest inquirer, one who seeks to under, 
stand the facts and phases of nature, society, and life, past 
and present, in North America, will find that native talent, 
observation, and industry have done more to unfold and illus- 
trate them than is generally known even by educated men. 
Our literature includes not only ample historical materials and 
contributions to natural history, but aesthetic and artistic 
writings, elucidating local scenery and character ; not only 
economical and topographical books, but standard poems on 
national themes, and many other generic illustrations of the 
comitry and the people. No philosophical traveller, who aims 
at a true knowledge of the country he explores, is satisfied 
with a casual observation of its external features, but seeks 
to realize its life and character, in history, biography, ro- 
mance, art, and poetry. 

The lives and writings of the remarkable men who origi- 
nated and established the principles, while they illustrated 
the spirit of America and her political aspirations, form the 
most authentic and interesting sources of knowledge. Through 
these the historical and social development of the country 
may be not only understood, but felt as a conscious experi- 
ence and -vdtal power. The best modern statesmen have 
sought and foimd therein auspicious inspiration — from 
Brougham in the days of his liberal proclivities, to Cavour 
at the summit of national success. The lives and writings 
of Washington, Franklin, Otis, Marshall, Jay, Hamilton, 
Adams, Jefferson, Morris, Quincy, Sullivan, and others of 
the Revolutionary era ; and, of a later, Livingston, Clinton, 
Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Jackson,* and other civic leaders, 

* " The Writings of George Washington," being his correspondence, 
addresses, messages, and other papers, official and private, selected and pub- 
lished from the original manuscripts, with a Life of the Author, notes and 
illustrations, by Jared Sparks, 12 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1855. — " 'Far across the 
ocean, if we may credit the Sibylline books, and aftef^any ages, an exten- 
sive and rich continent M'ill be discovered, and in it will arise a hero, wise and 
brave, who, by his counsel and arms, will deliver his country from the slavery 
by which she was oppressed. This shall he do under favorable auspices. And 
oh ! how much more adorable will he be than our Brutus and Camillus.' This 



AMERICA^Sr TEAVELLEES AND WEITEKS. 425 

reveal the principles of our institutions in their normal, an- 
tagonistic, and practical relations. These men incarnate 
them, and their words illustrate and enforce what their ex- 
ample embodied. Representative men, their country's best 
aims and elemental force and instincts find adequate and 
memorable expression in their speeches, correspondence, con- 
troversies, policy, and character ; and whosoever grasj^s and 
analyzes these, is alone equipjjed and authorized to comment 
intelligently on America as a political entity and a social ex- 
periment. " Let the people of the United States," writes 
Guizot, " ever hold in grateful remembrance the leading men 
of that generation which achieved their independence and 
founded their Government ; influential by their property, 
talent, or character ; foithful to ancient virtues, yet friendly 
to modern improvement ; sensible to the splendid advantages 

prediction was known to Accius the poet, who, in his ' Nyctegresia,' embel- 
lished it with the ornaments of poetry." — Cicero^ Frag. XV., Mali ed., p. 52. 

" The Life of George Washington," by Washington Irving, New York, 
1860. 

" The Works of Benjamin Franklin," with notes, and a Life of the Au- 
thor, by Jared Sparks, in 10 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1856, 

" Life and Works of John Adams," by his grandson, Charles Francis 
<Mams, 9 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1851-60. 

" Works of Alexander Hamilton," comprising his correspondence and his 
official and political writings, Y vols. 8vo., New York, 1851. 

" The Life of Gouverneur Morris," with selections from his correspond- 
ence, &c., edited by Jared Sparks, 3 vols. 8vo., Boston, 1852. 

" The Public Men of the Revolution," including events from the Peace of 
1783 to the Peace of 1815, by William Sullivan, Philadelphia, 1847. 

" Memoir of the Life of Josiah Quincy, Jr.," Boston, 1825. 

" Life of John Jay, with Selections from his Correspondence," by William 
Jay, New York, 1833. 

Tudor's "Life of Otis;" Amorj-'s "Life of Sullivan;" Hunt's "Life of 
Livingston ; " Wirt's " Life of Patrick Henry ; " Austin's " Life of Gerry ; " 
Wheaton's " Life of Pinckney ; " Parton's " Life of Jackson ; " Kennedy's 
" Life of Wirt ; " The Naval Biographies of Cooper and Mackenzie ; 
"Lives of American Merchants," edited by Freeman Hunt; "Life of Chief 
Justice Story," by his son ; Sparks's series of American Biographies ; the 
Lives of Schuyler, Rittenhouse, Fulton, Madison, Reed, Clay, Calhoun, &c, ; 
and the historical and biographical contributions of William L, Stone, Brantz 
Mayer, George W, Greene, Frothingham, Headley, Moore, and others. 



426 AMEBIC A AKD HEK COMMENT ATOES. 

of ciyillzation, and yet attached to simplicity of manners ; 
high toned in their feelings, but of modest minds, at the same 
time ambitious and prudent in their impulses ; men of rare 
endowments, Avho expected much from humanity, without 
presimiing too much upon themselves." Tlie later generation 
of statesmen elaborated the system and illustrated the prin- 
ciples of these peerless men ; and the combined writings and 
memoirs of both constitute an essential and complete expres- 
sion and indication of all the vital ideas and political sympa- 
thies of which America has been the free arena. To these 
personal data, so emphatic and illustrious, the philosophic in- 
quirer will add the history of the country, whether unfolded 
with bold generalizations and effective rhetoric, and through 
extensive and minute research, as by Bancroft, tersely chroni- 
cled by Hildreth, drawn from j)ersonal observation by Ram- 
say, or treated in special phases by Curtis, Cooper, Dunlap, 
Lossing, Sparks, and others.* "' 

The local histories, also, are in many instances full of im- 
portant details and illusti'ative principles : such are Theodore 
/'^irving's " Conquest of Florida," Palfrey's "^New England," 
-^ Belknap's " New Hampshire," "Williams's " Vermont," Ar- 
nold's "Rhode Island," Dwight's "Connecticut," Dr. Hawks's 
" North Carolina," Butler's " Kentucky," Drake's " Boston," 
Bolton's " Westchester County," and the contributions of the 
religious annals of the country in the history of Methodism 

* jCooper's " Naval History of the United States ; " Curtis's " History of 
the Constitution ; " Parkman's " Conspiracy of Pontiac." " Dunlap's " His- 
ytoTj of the American Theatre, and of the Arts of Design in the United States." 
Lossing's " Field Book of the Revolution." 

" Thirty Years' View ; or, A History of the Workings of the American 
Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850," by Thomas H. Benton. , 

" The Writings of Thomas Jefferson," published from original manu- 
scripts, by order of Congress, Washington, 1853, 9 vols. 8vo. * 

" The Works of Daniel Webster," Boston, 1857, 6 vols. 8vo. 

" Correspondence of the American Revolution," edited by Sparks. 

" Diplomacy of the Revolution/' by W. H. Trescott. 

" Correspondence and Speeches of Henry Clay," edited by C. Colton, New 
York, 3 vols. 8vo., 1851. 

Upham's " Salem Witchcraft." 

Thatcher's " Military Journal during the Revolution." 



a:meeican travellees and wkiters. 427 

by Abel Stevens, of the Presbyterian Churcli by Hodge, 
of Universalism by Wbittemore, of Episcopacy by Meade, 
Hawks, and Jai'vis ; and the history of manufactures, inven- 
tions, and educational institutions and public charities. 

It is instructive to consult the county and town histories 
of the Eastern and Middle States, because they unfold in 
detail the process and method of municipal organization, the 
means of popular education, the initiation of manufacturing 
and commercial enterprise, and the religious and social 
arrangements, which have built up small and isolated com- 
munities into flourishing cities ; and, if we compare the 
French and Spanish accounts of Florida and Louisiana with , 
the American, a still more striking illustration is afforded of/ 
the practical superiority of fi'ee institutions. One of the 
latest historians of the latter State (where secession was so 
lately rampant) closes his narrative, in allusion to the foreign 
colonial rule, thus : 

" There were none of those associations — ^not a link of that mys- 
tic chain connecting the present with the past — which produce an 
attachment to locality. It was not when a poor colony, and when 
given away like a farm, that slie prospered. This miracle was to be 
the consequence of the apparition of a banner which was not in 
existence at the time, which was to be the labanmi of the advent of 
liberty, the harbinger of the regeneration of nations, and which was 
to form so important an era in the history of mankind." * 

Specific information is now attainable through a series of 
standard works of reference. Authentic statistical and offi- 
cial information in regard to North America may be gleaned / 
from the Amerkaji Almanac, Hunt's Merchant'' s Magazine, 
and Colton's " Atlas." Tlie natural resources, geographical 
and political history, and remarkable public characters of 
each State and section are thoroughly chronicled in the 
" New American Cyclopaedia," a work specially valuable for 
its scientific and biographical data. Putnam's " American 
Facts " is a copious and authentic work. The literary and 

* Gayarre's " History of Louisiana." 



428 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 

educational history of the country is elaborately unfolded in 
Duyckinck's " Cyclopaedia of American Literature." * 

General literature offers a various and creditable cata- 
logue of American works, wherein independence of investiga- 
tion or originality of thought attests the impulse which free 
institutions give to private culture. In the department of 
pure literary labor, where faithful mastery of subjects for 
illustration must be sought afar, and with constant labor and 
care, the histories of Prescott, Ticknor, and Motley may be 
cited as of standard European interest and value. In juridi- 
cal literature, Marshall, Kent, Story, Wheaton, Livingston, 
Webster, and other names are of established authority ; and 
while, in the philosophy of our vernacular, Marsh, and, in its 
lexicography, Webster and Worcester, have achieved signal 
triumphs, the number and excellence of American educa- 
tional manuals are proverbial. Of the political treatises, the 

* Niles's " Weekly Register " commenced being published September Y, 
1811, and ended June 27, 1849; making, in all, 1& volumes. The first 50 
volumes were edited by Hezekiah Niles; vols. 51 to 57 were edited by 
"William Ogdeu Niles. Jeremiah Hough bought out, and was editor to the 
end of vol. 73. The publication was then suspended for one year, and re- 
commenced, and ended with the editorship of George Beattie, in 1849. 
This information I have from the celebrated bibliopolist of periodical litera- 
,,ture, S. G. Deeth, late of Georgetown, D. C, who was the highest authority 
on subjects of this kind. — Oowans' Catalogue. 

" American Facts, Xotes, and Statistics relative to the Government, Re- 
sources, &c., of the United States," by George P. Putnam, 8vo., portrait of 
/Washington, and map, London," 1845. 

"American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge," from 1830 to 
1860, both Inclusive, forming a complete set, paper covers, Boston, 1830-'6O. 
— " The abovenamed series of volumes forms the only consecutive annals of 
y. the United States. /for the last thirty-one years. They possess intrinsic value 
to all who would desire accurate information concerning the country during 
that period." 

" National Almanac," Philadelphia, 1863-4, 
' " The Census of the United States ; " Reports of the Patent Office and 
Agricultural Bureau. 

"New American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowl- 
/edge," edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, in 16 vols.. New York, 
D.°Appleton & Co., 1862. 

" Cyclopajdia of American Literature," by E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck, 2 
/V'ols., New York, Charles Scribner, 1855. 



AMERICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 429 

Federalist * has become a classic memorial of the foundation 
of the American Government. The prescience and per- 
spicacity as well as comprehensiveness of the writers thereof 
have been signally demonstrated by the whole history of 
the Slaveholders' Rebellion ; and the political discussion inci- 
dent to its suppression. 

The archives of American o rator y contain, for the saga- 
cious explorer, clear reflections of and genuine emanations 
from the life, the discipline, and the physical and moral con- 
ditions peculiar to the country. Indeed, to understand how 
democratic institutions act on individual minds, and in what 
light the duties of the citizen are viewed by select intelli- 
gences, the foreign inquirer should become familiar with the 
eloquence of Otis, Henry, Rutledge, Marshall, Adams, Clay,- 
Ames, Hamilton, Webster, and Everett. 

It requires no great effort of the imagination to behold in 
the distant future a literary apotheosis for the orations of 
Daniel Webster, at Bunker Hill, Plymouth, and in the Sen- 
ate, akin to tliat which has rendered those of Cicero patriotic 
classics for all time. Even we of the present generation 
seem to hear the oracle of history as well as of eloquence, 
when we revert, in the midst of the base mutiny that rends 
the Republic, to the pregnant and prescient defence of the 
Union which identifies Webster's name and fame ^vdth the 
glory and love of his country. 

Everett's Addresses, which form three substantial octavo 
volumes,! and will doubtless extend to four, constitute the 
most complete and eloquent record of the social and political 
development of our country. Their scope and value, in this 
regard, would have been more emphatically acknowledged 
but for the desultory association which identifies all spoken 
history and criticism with temporary occasions. Yet, when 
we consider that these discourses were studiously prepared to 

* " The Federalist : A Collection of Essays written in favor of the New 
Constitution, as agreed upon by the Federal Convention, September lY, 1787." 

f " Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions," 3 vols. 8vo., Boston, 
1850. 



430 AMEEICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS. 

celebrate anniversaries of settlements and battles, to do honor 
to national benefactors, to inaugurate great movements in 
education and charity, being thus equally commemorative of 
the past and indicative of the future, it is obvious that their 
subjects include the most salient facts and inferences of our 
origin, growth, and tendencies as a people, and biing attrac- 
tively into view many local and personal incidents that other- 
wise would have been overlooked. Accordingly, apart from 
any rhetorical merit, we know of no single work which will 
convey to an intelligent foreigner, a better general idea of the 
memorable phases of our national development, and the prin- 
ciples whereby it has been inspired, sustained, modified, and 
characterized, than the orations and speeches of Edward 
Everett* 

Indeed, to specify the kind and degree of information and 
illustration which native writers have contributed, would re- 
quire an elaborate critical essay. They form a mine of sug- 
gestive knowledge or subtile revelation to those who have the 
insight and sympathy to seek from original sources, the truth 
of history, nature, and character as regards this country. 
They are, to the mass of American Travels, what the finished 
picture is to the desultory series of offhand sketches from 
nature ; br what the musical composition is to the casual airs 
or keynote of the maestro. However the authenticity of 
Cooper's aboriginal ideals may be questioned, or with what- 
ever justice his nautical descriptions may be criticized, no 
true observer of nature, familiar Avith the scenes of his sto- 
ries, can fail to recognize a minute and conscientious limner 
of local and natural features and facts in his pictures of the 
woods and waters of his native land. No American reader of 
sensibility and perception can ponder the poems of Bryant, in a 
foreign land, without a new, vivid, and grateful consciousness 
of the pure and truthful mirror his verse affords, not only to 
the forms, hues, and phenomena, but to the very spirit of 

* A glance at the titles of these Addresses will indicate how completely 
they cover the entire range of Amertcan subjects — historical, educational, 
economical, and social. 



AMERICAN TKAVELLEES AND WKITEES. 43 L 

American seasons and scenery. There is an undercurrent of 
pathos and psychology in the New England romances of 
Hawthorne, which seizes on 'the inmost soul of her primitive 
life, and philosophically explains the normal traits of her 
actual character. It has been objected to his writings, that, 
with aU their artistic truth and delicacy, they are morbid in 
tone. This is the natural consequence of the element to 
which we refer. Analysis like his, implies going beneath the 
vital superficies to the inward function ; and what such an 
experiment loses in art, it gains in metaphysical power. The 
" Blithedale Romance " illustrates the enthusiasm for reform 
and of transcendentalism in New England. " The House 
of the Seven Gables " and " Twice-Told Tales " contain the 
psychological essence of primitive New England life. In the 
" Scarlet Letter " there is a profound though indirect protest 
against tlie inhumanity of Puritanism, as it was developed in 
the old Bay State — a demonstration of the unchristian system 
and sentiment that fail to temper justice with mercy, and to 
recognize the blessed efficiency of forgiveness. No native 
writer has gone so near the latent significance of New Eng- 
land life, in its moral interest and historical relations. 

Numerous, also, are the less finished and more casual but 
often striking and true glimpses of the primitive character or 
normal traits of life, manners, and natural influences in dif- 
ferent sections and at various periods, wliich the published cor- 
respondence, the memoirs and reminiscences, and the literary 
efforts of our public men, scholars, and patriotic citizens, 
yield. The unartistic but deeply wrought romance of " Mar- 
garet," by Judd, is a kind of Balzac anatomy and analysis of 
a once singular human experience in the Eastern States. 
The exquisite and original illustrations Avith which this remark- 
able story inspired the pencil of Darley, are its best praise. 

Many of the historical episodes, the transition eras, and 
much of the local character and scenery and life of the coim- 
try, have been pictured with memorable truth and vividness 
by our romance writers. Irving and Paulding have thus 
illustrated New York colonial times, the legends and the pic- 



432 AMERICA AND HEK COMMENTATOES. 

turesque scenes as well as social traits of the State ; Simms 
those of the South ; Kennedy has thus illustrated Virgiaia ; 
Dr. Bii-d, Kentucky ; Hofinaau, the Valley of the Mohawk ; 
Miss Sedgwick, primitive New England; Mrs. Stowe, Sar- 
gent, Trowbridge, and others, slavery ; Flint, the Valley of 
the Mississippi ; McConnell, Texas ; Mayne Reid, frontier 
life ; Major Winthrop, the Rocky Mountains ; Miss Warner, 
Miss Chesebro', and others of their sex, the rural and charac- 
teristic life of the Eastern States ; and we might indefinitely 
extend the catalogue. Nor should the peculiar veins of 
humor indigenous to the country be forgotten as character- 
istic of the people — its Western, Yankee, negro, and Dutch 
phases ; nor the fact be ignored that, coincident w'ith this and 
similar rude and extravagant development, we have the fin- 
ished romances of Ware and Poe, and the refined critical and 
assthetic writings of Dana, Hillhouse, Allston, Greenough, 
and Madame d'Ossoli, and the bold humanitarian speculations 
of Emerson, Dewey, James, Calvert, and others. Personal 
memoirs and reminiscences are a rich mine of facts and influ- 
ences, whereby the true life and significance of America may 
be realized. Of the former, such biographies as those of the 
heroes of our history conserved in the series of Sparks ; * 
such lives as those of Buckminster and Chief- Justice Parsons, 
of Irving and Prescott, indirectly exhibit the spirit of our 
institutions and society ; while curious details thereof abound 
in such memoirs as Graydon's, and such recollections as 
Watson of Philadelphia, Manlius Sargent and Buckingham 
of Boston, and Dr. Francis of New York, and ThSmas, 
Alden, Goodrich, Valentine, and the " Croakers," have re- 
corded.f "" 

* Sparks's " Americau Biography," containing the Lives of Alexander 
Wilson, Captain John Smith, John Stark, Brockden Brown, General Mont- 
gomery, and Ethan Allen, 2 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1834. 

Sparks's "American Biography," first series, 10 vols., second series, 15 
vols., in all, 25 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1834-50. 

f Watson's "Annals;" "Dealings with the Dead," by an Old Sexton; 
Buckingham's " Recollections of Editorial Life : " " Old New York," by J. W^ 



AMEKICAN TKAVELLERS AND WEITEES. 433 

Such works preserve social incidents and vigorous chap- 
ters of individual experience, wherem the philosopher will 
discover salient evidences of what is peculiar to this land and 
life ; and the poet may sometimes learn what were the con- 
servative elements that moulded the mental and kept ahve 
the emotional character, the traits of natural scenery, climate, 
and domestic love and duty, as well as the struggles, guides, 
and glamours through and by which here grew or were 
grafted whatsoever of originality redeem the social and civic 
history of the New World. Pamphlets, newspapers, and 
sermons, ballads, playbills, diaries and letters, schoolbooks, / 
holidays, old houses, gardens, portraits, and costumes, to the ' 
eye of science and the heart of wisdom, each and all convey 
their lesson of character, history, and life. 

We have spoken of Cooper in prose, and Bryant in verse, 
as standard authorities in the descrij^tion and illustration of 
American scenery ; but, throughout our native literature, the 
most grajjhic pictures of individual landscapes, of the sea- 
sons in the Western world, and the most glowing exhibition 
of the traits and triumphs of life, character, and history, 
may be •found by the discerning and symjiathetic reader. 
The spirit of reform, of labor, of freedom, and of faith, as 
well as the characteristics of nature as here developed, have 
been truly and melodiously recorded by Whittier and Holmes, 
by Dana and Pierpont, by Sprague and Street, by Longfel- 
low and Lowell, by Drake, Percival, Halleck, and a score of 
other bards. Theology, as intensified or chastened by the 
social life and political institutions of the country, is elabo- 
rated in the Avritings of Jonathan Edwards, Cotton, Mayhew, 
Stiles, Dwight, Witherspoon, Emmons, White, Mason, Hop- 
kins, Miller, Woods, Alexander, Breckeuridge, Wayland, 

Francis, M. D. ; Thatcher's " Military Journal ; " Thomas's " History of Print- 
ing in America ; " Alden's " Collection of American Epitaphs ; " " Recollec- 
tions of a Lifetime," by S. G. Goodrich ; " Manuals of the Conmion Council 
of New York," by D. T. Valenhne ; " The Croakers," by J. R. Drake and 
Fitz Greene Halleck (annotated), lirst complete edition, printed by the Brad- 
ford Club, New York, 1860. 
19 



434 AMEEICA AND HER C0MMENTAT0E8. 

Murray, Parks, Walker, Bethune, Chapin, Hodge, Bushnell, 
Bush, Charming, Dewey, Parker, and many other representa- 
tive men ; and its every dogma and modification through free- 
dom, conservatism, and speculation, exhibited in the published 
discourses of these and other of the leading clergy of all de- 
nominations, whose biographies,* also, written by Dr. Sprague 
and others, incidentally reveal the most interesting and charac- 
teristic details of clerical and parish life as well as domestic 
traits. To appreciate intimately the picturesque, social, or tra- 
ditional local features of the country, we have a group of authen- 
tic and graceful or vigorous and sympathetic writers, who have 
sketched the scenery and life of the land with memorable 
emphasis : Brown, Dennie, Tudor, Wirt, Irving, and Wilson 
have been succeeded by Audubon, Kennedy, Fay, Longfel- 
low, Hoffman, Sands, Willis, Curtis, Mitchell, Street, Prime, 
Ellet, Poe, Neal, Elliot, Hammond, Lowell, Shelton, Mil- 
burn, Thorpe, Baldwin, Cozzens, Kettell, Bard, Mackie, 
Headley, Parkman, Mrs. Gilman, Starr King, Strothers, Tay- 
lor, Webber, the Countess d'Ossoli, Whitehead, Kimball, 
Holland, Lanman, Mrs. Childs, Thoreau, Higginson, Miss 
Cooper, Dr. Holmes, and many othelrs.f 

Perhaps there is no class of books more characteristic of 
the American mind than the numerous records of modern 
exploration and travel. Herein even British critics acknowl- 
edge a peculiar freshness and vigor ; and this is chiefly owing 
to the independent point of vie^', the natural spirit of ad- 
venture, and facility of adaptation incident to the freedom, 
self-reliance, and elasticity of temper fostered by our institu- 

* "Annals of the American Pulpit," by William B. Sprague, D. D., 
9 vols. 8vo., New York, 185Y. 

I Among the graphic landscapes, portraits, and incidents thus eliminated 
from life and observation by these writers, we may fiiention^^s significant and 
illustrative, the American papers in " The Sketch Book " and " Idle Man," 
" Kavanagh," " Letters from Under a Bridge," " Up the River," " Woods 
and Waters," "The Adirondack," "Rural Letters," "The Bee Hunter," 
"The Axe, Rifle, and Saddle Bags," "My Farm of Edgewood," "Wild 
Scenes of the Forest and Prairie," " Lotus Eating," " A Summer Tour to the 
Lakes," " The White Mountains," " At Home and Abroad," " Fireside Trav- 



AMEKICAN TRAVELLERS AND WRITERS. 435 

tions aud social discipline. Europe kindles the enthusiasm, 
Central America excites the speculative hardihood, and the 
Arctic regions inspire the adventurous heroism of our coun- 
trymen. What they see they know how to describe, and 
what they feel they can express with courage and animation ; 
so that, in the memorials of other lands, the native mind 
often reflects itself with singular force and fervor.* He 
would miss a great source of knowledge, who, intent upon 
seizing the true significance of American life and character, 
or even the influences of nature and government, of trade 
and travel, should ignore the journalism of the country, 
wherein the immediate currents of opinion, tendencies of 
society, and tone of feeling, both radical and conservative, 
reckless and disciplined, find crude and casual yet authentic 
utterance. 

Freneau's ballads should not be thought beneath the no- 
tice of the candid investigator, nor even Barlow's " Hasty 
Pudding ; " nor can the historical student safely neglect the 
aboriginal eloquence of Red Jacket and Tecumseh, nor the 
early periodical literature initiated by Dennie. He may con- 
sult with benefit the first scientific essays of Catesby, Ram- 
_say, Williamson, Golden, and Mitchell ; Espy and Redfield on 

els," " Walden, or Life in the Woods," " A Week on the Concord and Mer- 
rimac Rivers," "The Moravian Settlement at Bethlehem, Pa.," "Carolina 
Sports," " Hunting Adventures in the Northern Wilds," " Excursions in 
Field and Forest," "Life in the Open Air," "At Home and Abroad," 
" Blackwater Chronicle,'.' " Out-of-Door Papers," " Letters from New York," 
" Wild Sports of the South," " Rural Hours," " Letters from the Alleghany 
Mountains." " The Oregon Trail," " Poetry of Travel in New England," 
" Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," "From Cape Cod to the Tropics, " &c. 

* Indirectly, the literature of Anierica illustrates the original enterprise 
that, with free and bold aspiration, seeks now and laborious fields of research 
or creation : as instances of which, in the most diverse spheres, may be noted 
the translation of the great work of Laplace, by Bowditch, Dr. Robinson's 
" Biblical Researches in Palestine," Kane's " Arctic Expedition," Allibone's 
" Dictionary of Authors," that picturesque memorial of the Fur Trade, 
Irving's "Astoria," and Dr. Rush on the " Human Voice ; " while the litera- ^ 
ture of Travel in our vernacular has been enriched by the contributions of /^ 
Stephens, Brace, Fletcher, Wise, Melville, Mackenzie,"T)ana, Mayo, and 
Taylor. 



436 AilEKICA AND HER COMMENTATOKS. 

Climatology ; Hitchcock and Rogers on Geology ; Barton, 
ISTuttall, and Grey and Torrey on Botany ; Davis, Squier, and 
others on the Mounds ; Schoolcraft on the aborigines; Carey 
on economical subjects ; the newspaper and diary literature, 
familiar letters, and controversial pamphlets, which more than 
highly finished productions bear the fresh stamp of civil and 
social life, and have been wisely collected by local and State 
associations, to facilitate inquiries into the past of America.* 
Nor have our institutions and social tendencies lacked the 
highest native criticism. One of the most consistent, lucid, 
and able ethical authors in the language — William Ellery 
Channing — has left, in his writings,! the most eloquent pro- 
tests and appeals, based on the application of religion and 
philosophy to American life, character, and politics. No 
writer has more perfectly demonstrated the absolute wrong 
and the inevitable consequences of slavery ; and, at the same 
time, no social reformer has more justly appreciated the 
claims, difficulties, and duties of the slaveholder. We seek 
in vain among the most renowned foreign critics of om* 
national character for a more unsparing, earnest, yet humane 
analyst. Channing rebuked emphatically " the bigotry of 
republicanism ; " continually pointed out the inadequacy of 
government, in itself, to elevate and mould society ; he 
warned his countrymen, in memorable terms, against the 
tyi'anny of public opinion, and advocated the rights, respon- 
sibilities, and mission of the individual. When slavery ex- 
tension was sought throi;gh the annexation of Texas ; when 
the repudiation of State debts drew obloquy upon the nar 
tional honor ; when popular vengeance burned a Roman 

* Among the early pamphleteers were James Otis (l'725-'83), Josiah 
Quincy, Jr. (1744-"75), John Dickmson (1732-1808); Joseph Galloway 
(1730-1803), a Tory writer; Richard Henry Lee (1732-94), Arthur Lee 
(1740-'92), William Livingston (1723-'90), William Henry Drayton (1742- 
'99), John Adams (1735-1826), Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), and Timothy 
Pickering (1748-1829). 

■)• "Complete Works," with an Introduction, 6 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1849. 

"Memoirs of, by W. H. Channing," 3 vols. 12mo., Boston, 1843, London, 
1848. 



AMERICA]^ TEAVELLEKS AND WRITERS. 437 

Catholic convent, and sought to suppress journals that pro- 
mulgated obnoxious views in religion and politics — this elo- 
quent friend of humanity seized the opportunity to show 
how essential is the dependence of government, order, social 
progress, and peace upon Christianity ; and how, in the last 
analysis, the individual citizen alone could sustain and con- 
serve the freedom and the faith upon which human society 
rests. He referred great public questions to first principles ; 
solved political problems by spiritual truths ; recognized 
human rights as the foundation of civic rule ; justice as the 
one vital element of government ; and made his hearers and 
readers feel that the " forms of liberty do not constitute its 
essence." Were we to select a single illustration of the 
divine possibilities incident to free institutions, — liberty of 
conscience and of the press, the presence of natui-e in her 
most grand aspects of ocean, forest, and heavens, and an 
equal scope for social and personal development, — considering 
these national privileges in their influence upon intellectual 
development and religious aspirations, — we should point to the 
example, the influence, and the written thought of Chan- 
ning ; for therein we find the most unfettered exjircssion of 
private conviction united to the deepest sense of God and 
humanity ; the freshest expansion of freedom combined with 
the most profound consciousness of individual responsibility. 



CHAPTEE XI. 

CONCLUSION. 

For many years after the earlier records of travel in 
America, the local and social traits therein described lin- 
gered ; so that those who look back half a centmy, find 
many familiar and endeared associations revived by these 
casual memorials of an antecedent period. Two principal 
agencies have caused the rapid transition in outward aspect 
and social conditions which make the present and the past 
ofier so great a contrast even within the space of an average 
I American life — immigration, and locomotive facilities. The 
\ *' first has, in a brief space, quadrupled the population of cities, 
and modified its character by a foreign element ; and the 
second, by bringing the suburban and interior residents con- 
stantly to tlie seaboard, has gradually won them to trafiic and 
city life. What was individual and characteristic, exclusive 
and local therein, becomes thus either changed or superseded. 
There is no longer the reign of coteries ; individualities are 
lost in the croAvd ; natives of old descent are jostled aside in 
the thoroughfare ; the few no longer form i^ublic opinion ; 
distinctions are generalized; the days of the one great states- 
man, preacher, actor, doctor, merchant, social oracle, and 
paramount belle, when opinion, intercourse, and character 
were concentrated, locaUzed, and absolute, have passed away ; 
and the repose, the moderation, the economy, the geniality 
and dignity of the past are often lost in gregarious progress 



CONCLUSION. 439 

and prosperity. A venerable reminiscent may lead the curious 
stranger to some obscure gable-roofed house, a solitary and 
decayed tree, or border relic strangely conserved in the heart 
of a thriving metropolis, and descant on the time when these 
represented isolated centres of civilization. Standing in a 
busy mart, he may recall there the wilderness of his youth, 
and, before an old, dignified portrait by Copley, lament the 
fusion of social life and the bustle of modern pretension ; or, 
dwelling on the details of an ancestral letter, argue that, if 
our fathers moved slower, they felt and thought more and 
realized life better than their descendants, however superior 
in general knowledge. Except for the purpose of literary art 
and historical study, however, the past is rarely appreciated 
and little known ; hence the curious interest and value, as 
local illustrations, of some of these forgotten memorials of 
how places looked and jjeople lived before the days of steam, 
telegraphs, and penny papers. 

Sir Henry Holland, writes Lockhart to Prescott, " on his 
return from his rapid expedition, declares, except friends, he 
found everything so changed, that your coimtry seemed to 
call for a visit once in five years." The truth is, that, owing 
to the transition process which has been going on here from 
the day that the first conflict occurred between European 
colonists and the savage inhabitants, to the departure of the 
last emigrant train from the civilized border to the passes 
of the "Rocky Mountains ; and owing, also, to the incessant 
influx of a foreign element in the older communities, to the 
results of popular education and of political excitements and 
vicissitudes, there is no country in the world in regard to 
which it is so difiicult to generalize. Exceptions to every 
rule, modifications of every special feature and fact, oblige 
the candid philosopher to reconsider and qualify at every 
step. 

One vast change alone in the conditions and prospects — 
political, social, and economical — of this continent, since the 
records of the early travellers, would require a volume to 
describe and discuss — the increase of territory and of immi- 



440 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATOES. 

gration, with the liberal character of our naturahzation laws. 
Whole communities now are nationally representative ; each 
people finds its church, its fetes^ its newspaper, costume, and 
habits organized ia America. Every convulsion or disaster 
abroad brings its community of exiles to our shores. After 
the French Revolution, nobles and people flocked hither ; 
after the massacre at St. Domingo, the Creoles who escaped 
found refuge here ; famine sends thousands of Irish annually, 
and in the "West is a vast and thrifty German population ; 
Hungarians make wine in Ohio ; Jenny Lind found her coun- 
trymen on the banks of the Delaware ; an Italian regiment 
was organized in a few days, when New York summoned her 
citizens to the defence of the Union ; and in that city, the 
tokens of every nationality are apparent — the French table 
dliote^ the Italian caffe, the German beer garden, image 
venders from Genoa and organ grinders from Lucca, theatres, 
journals, churches, music, and manners peculiar to every peo- 
ple, from the Jewish synagogue to the Roman convent, from 
the prohibited cavatina to the local dish, from the foreign 
post-office clerk to the peculiar festival of saint or mimicipal- 
ity, betoken the versatile and protected emigration. 

It is when, with the horrors of Spielberg vivid to his 
fancy, such an observer beholds the industrious and cheerful 
Italian exile in America ; when he notes the Teutonic crowd 
grouped round the German post-office window at Chicago, 
and thinks of the privations of the German peasant at home ; 
when he watches the long ranks of well-fed and hilarious 
Celts, in procession on St. Patrick's Day in New York, and 
compares them with the squalid tenants of mud cabins in Ire- 
land ; when he listens to the unchecked eloquence of the 
Hungarian refugee, and thinks of the Austrian censors and 
sbirri ; when he beholds Sisters of Charity thridding the 
crowd on some errand of love ; placidly clad Friends flock- 
ing to yearly meeting ; Fourier communities on the Western 
plains ; here a cathedral, there a synagogue ; in one spot a 
camp meeting, in another a Unitarian chapel; to-night a 
political caucus, to-morrow a lyceum lecture ; here rows of 



CONCLUSION. 441 

carmen devouring the daily journal, there a German picnic ; 
now a celebration of the birthday of Burns, wherein the 
songs and sympathies of Scotland are renewed, and now a 
Gallic ball, the anniversary /Ste of St. Geoi'ge, the complacent 
retrospections of Pilgrims' Day, or the rhetoric and roar of 
the Fourth of July ; — it is when the free scope and the mu- 
tual respect, the perfect self-reliance and the undisturbed 
individuality of all these opposite demonstrations, indicative 
of an eclectic, tolerant, self-subsistent social order, combina- 
tion, and utterance, pass before the serises and impress the 
thought, that we realize what has been done and is doing on 
this continent for man as such ; and the imhallowed devotion 
to the immediate, the constant superficial excitements, the 
inharmonious code of manners, the lawlessness of border and 
the extravagance of metropolitan life, the feverish ambition, 
the license of the press — all the blots on the escutcheon of 
the Republic, grow insignificant before the sublime possibih- 
ties whereof probity and beneficence, tact and talent, high 
impulse and adventurous zeal may here take advantage. 

An English statesman, on a visit to New York, expressed 
his surprise at the spirit of accommodation and the absence 
of violent language during a deadlock of vehicles in Broad- 
way, whence his conveyance was only extricated after long 
delay. The fact made a strong impression, from its con- 
trast to the brutal language and manners he had often wit- 
nessed, imder like circumstances, in London. After reflect- 
ing on the subject, he attributed the self-control of the bafiled 
carmen to self-respect. " They hope to rise in life," he said, 
" and, therefore, have a motive to restrain their temper and 
improve then* character." There was much truth and sagacity 
in this reasoning. An artist fresh from Europe and the East 
observed that the expression of self-reliance Avas astonishing 
in the American physiognomy. These spontaneous remarks 
of two strangers, equally intelligent but of diverse experi- 
ence — the one a social and the other an artistic philosopher — 
Include the rationale of American civilization. The jirospect 
of ameliorating his condition elevates man in his own esteem, 
19* 



442 AMERICA AKD HEK COMMENTATOES. 

while self-dependence gives him confidence ; but the latter 
feeling is apt to make him indifferent to public duty : hence 
the gross municipal corruption and legislative abuses which 
are directly owing to neglect of the duties of the citizen. 
Not untn there is a " rising of the people " in the cause of 
national reform, as earnest and unanimous as that which ral- 
lied to the national defence, may we hope to see those ame- 
liorations, the need of which all acknowledge, to purify the 
elective franchise and the judicial corps, make the centripe- 
tal force in political affairs dominate the centrifugal, and 
bring the best men in capacity and honor to the highest 
positions. 

To the eye and mind of an American, when disciplined 
by study and foreign observation, while the incongruities of 
our social and physical condition, as a nation, are often start- 
ling, the elastic temper, the unsubdued confidence of the 
national character, reconcile discrepancies and console for 
deficiencies, by the firm conviction that these are destined to 
yield to a civilization whose tendency is so diffusive. There 
are, indeed, enough signs of amelioration to encourage the 
least sanguine. Within a few years, the claims of genius 
and character, of taste and culture, have been more and more 
practically recognized. The refinements in domestic econo- 
my, the popularity of art, the prevalent love and cultivation 
of music, the free institutions for self-culture, the new appre- 
ciation of rural life, the tempered tone of religious contro- 
versy, the higher standard of taste and literature, and the 
more frequent study of the natural sciences, are obvious indi- 
cations of progress in the right direction, sin.ce the severe 
comments upon American life and manners were partially 
justified by facts. Even the specific defects noted by travel- 
lers half a century ago, are essentially lessened or have quite 
disappeared. 

A living and candid French writer alludes to the United 
States as " une terre plus separee de nous par les nuages de 
nos prejuges que par les brouillards de I'Atlantique." Not a 
few of these prejudices had their origin in facts that no 



CONCLUSION. 443 

longer exist. It is almost impossible for a European to make 
due allowances for the changes that occur on this side of the 
water. But while some of the minor faults and dangers re- 
corded by tourists are obsolete, the chief obstacles recognized 
by aU thoiightful observers to our national welfare, are only 
so far diminished that they are more clearly apprehended and 
more candidly acknowledged. The crisis foretold as regards 
slavery, has arrived, and taken the form of an unprovoked 
rebellion against the Federal Government, whereby the na- 
tional power and virtue have been confirmed and elicited. 
The double term of the Presidential office, the almost indis- 
criminate right of electoral suffi-age, in connection with the 
vast emigration of ignorant and degraded natives of Europe, 
the facility in making and consequent recklessness in spend- 
ing money, the extension of territory, the decadence in public 
spirit, the increase of unprincipled political adventurers, and 
the license of the press, have, each and all, as prophesied and 
anticipated, worked out an immeasurable amount of political 
and social evil. Irreverence and materialism have kept pace 
with success ; abuses in official rule, neglect in civic duty, 
convulsions in finance, crises of political opinion and parties 
— a kind of mechanical, unaspiring, self-absorbed prosperity, 
have resulted from so many avenues to wealth thrown open to 
private enterprise, and such a passion for gain and office as 
the unparalleled opportunity inevitably breeds. Yet, withal, 
there have been and are redeeming elements, auspicious signs, 
hopeful auguries ; and those who are least cognizant of these, 
should never forget that our social life and political system 
bring everything to the surface ; and it is the average 
character of a vast nation, and not the acts of a few exclu- 
sive rulers, that the daily journals of the United States re- 
veal. The Government is always behind and below what it 
represents ; the facts of the hour that are patent, and taken 
as significant of the national life, are but partial exponents 
of private use, beauty, faith, freedom, progress, and peace, 
which eternal blessings the individual is more free to seek 



444 AMERICA AND HEE COMMENTATORS. 

here and now, than xiiider any institutions the record whereof 
is concealed in royal cabinets. 

It has long been an accepted proposition, that the peculiar 
interest, importance, and moral significance of the United 
States in the family of nations, rests exclusively on a practical 
realization of the " greatest good of the greatest number ; " 
in other words, Euroj)e has represented the idea of culture 
and of society — America of material prosperity, the paradise 
of the masses, the one place on earth where nourishment and 
shelter can be had most certainly in exchange for labor : 
hence the manners of the country have been invariably criti- 
cized, and i^hysical resources magnified ; and hence, too, the 
cant whereby a few general facts are made to overshadow 
countless special details of life, of charactei*, and of civiliza- 
tion. Never was there a poj)ulous land whose inhabitants 
were so imiformly judged en masse^ or one about which the 
truth has been more generalized and less discriminated. We 
find it quite easy to imagine the far difierent conclusions to 
which an observant and perspicacious student of life in Amer- 
ica might arrive, with ample opportunities and sympathetic 
insight. To such a mind, the individual of adequate endow- 
ments, born and bred or long resident here, would offer traits 
and triumphs of character or experience, directly resulting 
from the political, social, and natural circumstances of the 
country, which, to say the least, would impress him with the 
originaUty and possible superiority thereof in a psychological 
or ethnological view. To group, define,, or analyze these 
peculiarities, would require not only an artist's insight and 
skill, but a much broader range than a traveller's hasty jour- 
nal or a reviewer's flippant commentary. There is one branch 
of the subject, however, to which every thinking observer is 
irresistibly led — the remarkable diversities of tone and tact, 
of vigor and adaptation, of personal conviction and individual 
careers, which the life of the prairies and the mart, and the 
plantation, the seaboard, and the interior, the scholar of the 
East, the hunter of the "West, the agriculturist of the South, 
and the manufacturer of the North, mould, foster, and train ; 



CONCLUSION. 445 

the rare and rich social combination thence eliminated ; the 
occasional force and beauty, bravery and influence thus de- 
veloped in a way and on a scale imknown to Europe : such 
possibilities and local tendencies being furthermore infinitely 
modified and tempered, intensified or diffused, by the extra- 
ordinary degree of personal freedom and range of specula- 
tion and belief, experiment and inquiry — religious, scientific, 
political, and economical ; — perhaps not the least striking evi- 
dence whereof is to be found in the modification of national 
traits observed in foreigners who become Americanized — the 
sensitive and capricious native of Southern Europe, often 
attaining self-reliance and jirogressive energy ; the English 
solidity of character becoming " touched to finer issues " by 
attrition with a more liberal social hfe and a less humid cli- 
mate ; and even Gallic vivacity reaching an imwonted practi- 
cal and judicious equilibrium : for it is a curious f;ict, that the 
student of character can nowhere detect in solution so many 
of the influences of all climes and the idiosyncrasies of all 
nations, as in this grand rendezvous and arena — obnoxious, 
indeed, to the evils that attend extravagance, superfluity, in- 
congruity, the wilfulness and the wantonness of gregarious 
prosperity ; but none the less radiant and real with the hope 
and the health of abimdant human elements, and the abey- 
ance of caste, despotism, and conformity ; so that, more and 
more, the great lesson of moral independence comes home to 
personal conviction. From early learning to work and think 
for themselves, and to feel for others, our people grow in the 
intimate conviction that here and now, if nowhere else in 
God's universe, men and women can, by the just exercise of 
their will and the wise use of their opportunities, live accord- 
ing to their individual wants, capacities, and belief; rise 
above circumstances ; assert their individuality ; cultivate 
their powers in faith and freedom ; enjoy their gifts ; and 
become, however situated, true and benign exemplars of 
manhood and womanhood. And in all these natural and civic 
agencies that excite and eliminate and intensify, ay, and 
often prematurely wear out and unwisely concentrate the 



446 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

energies and the life of humanity here, we behold an arena, 
a series of influences, a means and mediimi of experience and 
experiment, designed by Infinite Wisdom for a special pur- 
pose in the vast economy of the world ; and before this con- 
viction the pigmies of political prejudice and the venal critics 
of the hour sink into contempt. 

In a broad view and with reference to humanity, as such, 
it is Opportunity that distinguishes and consecrates American 
institutions, nationality, nature, and life. No microscopic or 
egotistical interpretation can do justice to the country. A 
narrow heart, a conventional standard, are alike inapplicable 
to test communities, customs, resources, as here distributed 
and organized. Berkeley as a Christian, Washington as a 
patriotic and De Tocqueville as a political philosopher, recog- 
nized Opportunity as the great and benign distinction of 
America. The very word implies the possible and probable 
abuses, the periods of social transition, the incongruities, 
hazards, and defects inevitable to such a condition. Com- 
merce, science, and freedom are the elements of our prosper- 
ity and character ; and it is no Utopian creed, that, by the 
laws of modern civilization, they work together for good ; 
but the dilettante and the epicurean, the rigid conservative, 
the exacting man of society, and the selfish man of the 
world, find their cherished instincts often oifended, where the 
generous and wise, the noble and earnest soul is lost in " an 
idea dearer than self," when, with disinterested acumen and 
sympathy, regarding the spectacle of national development 
and personal success. 

To the eye of a historical and ethical philosojjher, no pos- 
sible argument in favor of liberal institutions can be more 
impressive than the insane presumption which has led men of 
education and knowledge of the world to stir up and lead an 
insurrection to secure, in this age and on this continent, the 
perpetuity and political sanctity of human slavery. So des- 
perate a moral experiment argues the irrationality as well as 
the inhumanity of " property in man " with trumpet-tongued 
emphasis. And this solemn lesson is enforced by the new 



CONCLUSION. 4A7 

revelation, brought about by civil war, of the actual influence 
of slavery upon character. The ignorance and recklessness 
of the " poor whites " became fanatical under the excitement 
to passion and greed, which the leaders fostered to betray 
and brutalize the " landless resolutes." Under no other cir- 
cumstances, by no conceivable means, except through the 
unnatural and inhuman conditions of such a social disorgani- 
zation, could a white population, in the nineteenth century, 
on a flourishing continent and under an actually free Gov- 
ernment, be cajoled and maddened into hate, unprovoked by 
the slightest personal wrong, and exhibiting itself in blas- 
phemy, theft, drimkenness, poisoning, base and cruel tricks, 
barbarities wholly imknown to modern civilized warfare ; 
such as bayoneting the wounded, wantonly shooting prison- 
ers, desecrating the dead to convert their bones into ghastly 
trophies, and leaving behind them, in every abandoned camp, 
letters malign in sentiment, vulgar in tone, and monstrous in 
orthography — patent evidences of the possible coexistence 
of the lowest barbarism and ostensible civilization, and the 
moral necessity of anticipating by war the suicidal crisis of 
a fatally diseased local society. 

When the English replied to John Adams's defence of 
the American Constitution, their chief argument against it 
was, that, in war, the Executive had not adequate power. 
This supreme test has now been applied in a desperate civil 
conflict. An educated people have sustained the Government 
in extending its constitutional authority to meet the national 
exigency, without the least disturbance of that sense of pub- 
lic security and private rights essential to the integrity of our 
institutions. Nor is this all. The war for the Union has, in a 
few months, done more to solve the problem of free and slave 
labor, to do away with the superstitious dread of servile in- 
surrection in case of partial freedom, to expose the fallacies 
of pro-slavery economists, to demonstrate the identity of 
prosperous industry with freedom, to mutually enlighten dif- 
ferent populations, to make clear the line of demarcation 
between the patriot and the politician, to nationalize local 



M8 AMERICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

sentiment, to make apparent the absolute resources of the 
countiy and the normal character of the people, and thus to 
vindicate free institutions, than all the partisan dissensions 
and peaceful speculation since the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. Moreover, the war has developed original inventive 
talent in ordnance and camp equipage, afforded precisely the 
disciiiline our people so " disinclined to subordination" need- 
ed, won our self-indulgent young men from luxury to self- 
denial, evoked the generous instincts of the mercantile classes, 
called out the benign efficiency of woman, confirmed the 
poi:)ular faith, fused classes, made heroes, unmasked the selfish 
and treacherous, purified the social atmosphere, and, through 
disaster and hope deferred, conducted the nation to the high- 
est and most Christian self-assertion and victory. The his- 
tory of the Sanitary Commission, the improvements in mili- 
tary science, the letters of the rank and file of the Union 
army preserved in the local journals, the topographical reve- 
lations, personal prowess, vast extent of operations, new 
means and appliances, and momentous results, will afford the 
future historian not only imique materials, but fresh and sur- 
prising evidence of the elements of American civilization as 
exhibited through the fiery ordeal of civil war. The Procla- 
mation * of the President of the United States at the close 

* " Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. 

" We, of this Congress, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. 

" No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another 
of us. 

" The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down in honor or 
dishonor to the latest generation. 

" "We say that we are for the Union. The world will not forget that 
while we say this, we do know how to save the Union. The world knows we 
do know how to save it. We, even we here, hold the power and bear the 
responsibility. 

" In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free, honorable 
alike in what we give and what we preserve. 

" We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of the earth. 

" Other means may succeed. This could not fail. 

" The way is plain — peaceful, generous, just ; a way which, if followed, 
the world will ever applaud, and God must forever bless. 

" Abraham Lincoln." 






CONCLUSION. 449 

of the year 1862, betokens a new and advanced charter of 
American progress. 

" Will anybody deny," asks John Bright, in a recent' 
speech to his constituents, " that the Government at Wash- 
ington, as regards its own people, is the strongest Govern- 
ment in the world at this hour ? And for this simple reason, 
because it is based on the will of an instructed people. Look 
at its power. I am not now discussing why it is, or tlie cause 
which is developing this power ; but power is the thing which 
men regard in these old countries, and which they ascribe 
mainly to European instittitions. But look at the power 
which the United States have developed ! They have brought 
more men into the field, they have built more ships for their 
navy, they have shown greater resources than any other na- 
tion in Europe at this moment is capable of. Look at the 
order which has prevailed at their elections, at which, as you 
see by the ])apers, 50,000, or 100,000, or 250,000 persons 
voted in a given State, with less disorder than you have seen 
lately in three of the smallest boroughs in England — Barn- 
stable, Windsor, and Andover. Look at their industry. Not- 
withstanding this terrific struggle, their agriculture, their 
manufactures and commerce proceed with an uninterrupted 
success. They are ruled by a President chosen, it is true, 
not from some worn-out royal or noble blood, but from the 
people, and one whose truthfulness and spotless honor have 
gained him universal praise. And now the country that 
has been vilified through half the organs of the jDress in 
England during the last three years, and was pointed out, too, 
as an example to be shunned by many of your statesmen, — 
that country, now in mortal strife, affords a haAxn and a home 
for multitudes flying from the burdens and the neglect of the 
old Governments of Europe. And, when this mortal strife is 
over, when peace is restored, when slavery is destroyed, when 
the Union is cemented afresh — for I would say, in the lan- 
guage of one of our poets addressing his country, 

' The grave 's not dug where traitor hands shall lay, 
In fearful haste, thy murdered corse away ' — 






450 AilEEICA AND HER COMMENTATORS. 

then Europe and England may learn that an instructed de- 
mocracy is the surest foundation of government, and that 
education and freedom are the only sources of true greatness 
and true happiness among any people." 

X When the new scientific methods of historical writing are 

applied to the annals of our own country, some remarkable 
coincidences and a dramatic unity in the sequence of memo- 
rable events will illustrate the chronicle. To subdue the wil- 
derness ; to colonize with various nationalities a vast conti- 
nent ; to vindicate, by the ordeal of battle, the supremacy 
among them of the Anglo-Saxon element ; to raise and purify 
this into political self-assertion, by establishing free institu- 
tions ; under their auspicious influence to attain the great- 
est industrial development and temtorial expansion ; and, 
finally, in these latter days, to solve, by the terrible alterna- 
tive of civil war, the vast and dark problem of slavery — this 
is the momentous series of circumstances whereby it has 
pleased God to educate this nation, and induce moral results 

fraught with the highest duties and hopes of humanity ; and, 

deeply conscious thereof, we cannot but exclaim, with our 
national poet : 

" O country, marvel of the earth ! 

O realm to sudden greatness grown ! 
The age that gloried iu thy birth, 

Shall it behold thee overthrown? 
Shall traitors lay thy greatness low ? 
No ! land of hope and blessing, no ! " 



I 1^ D E X. 



I 2^ D E X. 



ABUSE of America, English, 252. 
Addison, writmes of, compared with 
tliose of Wasljington Irving, 288. 

Address of eminent Frenchmen to loyal 
Americans, 154. 

Addresses, commemorative, 421. 

Adriani, Count, 340; "Washington's opin- 
ion of his book, 340. 

Adventure, spirit of Americans for, 434. 

Agassiz, on the priority of tiii.- formation 
of the American continent, 14. 

Albany, sketch of societj' at, by Mrs. 
Grant, 172 ; Peter Kalm'a picture of, in 
1T49, 296. 

Alessandro, Pietro d', 342; his letters from 
Boston, 343 ; visits Cambridge, 349 ; the 
Boston Athenfeum, 351. 

Allouez, Father Claude, narrative of, 44. 

AUston, Washington, on theatKnity which 
fchould exist between the United States 
and England, 259. 

Alyaco, Petrus de, " Imago Mundi," 
Washington Irving's remarks on, 23. 

America, similarity of, to Italy in furnish- 
ing subjects of interest to authors, 2 ; 
general sameness of writings of travels 
in, 4 ; European writers of travels in, 
each interested in a different theme, 4 ; 
toleration in, the source of its attraction 
to foreign exiles, 7; natural featurei* 
also interest, 7 ; early discoverers and 
explorers of, 13 ; its natural feattires 
conduce to the spread of civilization, 
15 ; its antiquities compared with those 
of the Old World, 16 ; conjectures in 
regard to the primitive inhabitants of 
America, 17 ; claimed by the Welsh to 
have been discovered by Madoo In 1170, 
18 ; early pictorial representations of 
manners and customs of its inhabitants, 
23 ; the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- 
ries prolific in works on, 24 ; curious re- 
lics of annals of discovery in, 26 ; mis- 
cellaneous publications relating to, 33 ; 
English abuse of, 252 ; book collectors 
in, 317 ; deceptions practised upon trav- 
ellers in, 341 ; self-respect of its people, 
441. 

American travellers and writers, 371. 



Ampere, J. J.," Promenade enAmerique," 
142 ; notes carelessness of Americans. 
143 ; versatility of his descriptions, 144 . 

Anburj-, Thomas, "Travels in the Inte- 
rior of America," 186 ; description of 
Cambridge, Mass., 187 ; notices the de- 
fective teeth of Americans, 188 ; regrets 
that he cannot visit Boston, 188 ; anx- 
iety to return to England, 188. 

Antiquities, American, compared with 
those of the Old World, 16. 

Ashe, Thomas, 202; his travels in Amer- 
ica, 203 ; his peculiar opinions of Amer- 
icans, 204. 

Athenaeum, the Boston, described by Pie- 
tro d' Alessandro, 350. 

BACKWOODSME]Sr, American, Tal- 
leyrand's opinion of, 114. 

Bancroft, George, visit of John G. Kohl to, 
at Newport, 324. 

Barre, Col., on English of America before 
the Revolutionary war, 254. 

Bartlett, John R., " Dictionary of Amer- 
icanisms,'' 236 ; similarity between the 
provincialisms of New England and 
those of Great Britain, 286. 

Bartram, John, 372; his botanieallabors, 
372; his travels, 374; Peter Collinson'a 
opinion of him, 374; his close observ- 
ance of nature, 376; descri]ition of Os- 
wego, 377 ; appointed bolanist and nat- 
uralist to the king of England, 378 ; ex- 
plores Florida, 379 ; liis home life, 380. 

Bartram, William, 382; his study of na- 
ture, 384. 

Beaumont, Gnstave de, his " Marie," 139; 
women of America and France com- 
pared, 141. 

Belknap, Dr., the foremost primitive lo- 
cal historian of America, 3 ; founder of 
the Massachusetts Histori<'al Society, 
3 ; his description of the White Moun- 
tains, 3. 

Beltrami, J. C, " Pilgrimage in Europe 
and America," 342. 

Benton, Thomas H., sketch of, 322. 

Berkeley, Bishop G., 156 ; obtains a char- 
ter for erecting a college in Bermuda, 



454 



INDEX. 



157 ; liis letters, 157 ; "Walpole and, 158 ; 
lines of, 159 ; marries and embarks for 
America, 159 ; his frieudship for 8mi- 
bert the painter, 161 : his saeriflces, 161 ; 
arrives at Newport, R. I., 162 ; religions 
condition of Eiiode Island in 1714, 162 ; 
his reception at Newport, 1C3 ; letter 
describing the town, 164 ; is delighted 
with American scenery, 165 ; his muni- 
ficence to Yale College, 167 ; memorials 
of his residence in America, 109. 

Biography, American, 424, 432. 

BlackicodcVs JUaguzine, remarks of, on 
Harriet Martineau's book, 225 ; its ridi- 
cule of Yale College and Nov/ England- 
ers, 263. 

Bonaparte, Joseiih, resides in seclusion in 
New Jeri^ey, 122. 

Book collectort?, American, 317. 

Books of travel, diversity of treatment of, 4. 

Boston, notes of Marquis de Chastellux 
on, 74; described by L'Abbe Roliin in 
1781, 76 ; its people, 77 ; comraercfe, 78 ; 
visit of Brissot de W.irville to, 83 ; com- 
mercial intercourse of, in 1729, 106 ; John 
G. Kolil's impressions of, 313 ; book col- 
lectors of, 317 ; Luigi Castiglione's im- 
pressions of, 339 ; Pietro d'Alessandro's 
description of its people, 345. 

Botany, promoters of the science of, in 
America, 372. 

BottM, Carlo, 334. 

Bradford, Governor, poetical description 
of New England, 33. 

Breckinridgei^Dr., on the necessity of the 
maintenance of the American Union, 277. 

Bremer, Fredrika, her novels, 298 ; her 
reception in America, 29S ; her compari- 
sons of Swedish and American scene- 
ry, 299 ; her curiosity, 299. 

Bright, John, on the strength of the 
United States Government, 449. 

Brillat-Savarin , " Physiologic du Gout," 
125 ; wild-turkey shooting, 126 ; visit to 
the family of U. Bulow, 127. 

Brissot de AV^arville, 82 ; visits Boston, 
83; journeys to New York, 84 ; Phila- 
delpiiia, 84 ; visits Washington at Mount 
Vernon, 85 ; Wliittier's lines on, S6 ; his 
anti-slavery sympathies, 86 ; admiration 
of Americans", 87 ; sketch of New York 
city in 1788, 87 ; smoking in New York, 
,88. 

Bristed, Bev. John, 205 ; his " America 
and her Resources," 205 ; opinion oi Lon- 
don Quarterly Kevieic on his work, 206. 

British authors, writings of, compared 
with those of America, 288. 

British colonists in America described by 
Charlevoix, 49. 

British travellers and writers on America, 
156; desirableness and feasibility of a 
compilation of their works, 215 ; miscel- 
laneous works of, on America, 218, 219, 
220, 222, 224, 229. 

Brown, Charles Brockden, translates Vol- 
ney's work on America, 97. 

Browning, Elizabeth, on British illiber- 
ality, 290. 

Bryant, William Cullen, his " Letters of a 
Traveller," 418 ; his poems, 430. 



Bulow, M., visit of Brillat-Savarin to the 
family of, 127. 

Burke, Edmund, " Account of the Euro- 
pean Settlements in America," ISl. 

BurnaViy, Rev. Andrew, 173 ; his descrip- 
tion of Virginians, 173 ; visits Philadel- 
phia, 174 ; New York, 174 ; opinion of 
Long Island, 175 ; visits Rhode Island, 
175 ; opinion of its people, 175 ; his de- 
scription of Bishop Berkeley's residence 
at Newport, 176 ; visits Boston and 
Cambridge, 177 ; strict observance of 
the Sabbath in New England, 178 ; his 
opinions in regard to the American 
colonies, 179. 

Byrd, William, expeditions of, described 
in the Westover Manuscripts, 32. 

Bj-rou, 211 ; his apostrophe to America, 
212. 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., described by Tho- 

\j mas Anbury, 187 ; I'ietro d'Alessan- 
dro's visit to, 349. 

Canonicut Island, Bishop Berkeley lands 
at, 162. 

Capobianco, Raffaelle, 358 ; ridiculous 
statements of his book, 359. 

Carli, Le Comte, " Letlres Americaines," 
5. 

Carlisle, Earl of, his lecture at Leeds on 
the United States, 231. 

Carver, Capt. John, 387 ; his "' Tr.ivels," 
388. 

Castiglione, Luigi, 338 ; his impressions of 
Boston, 339 ; visit to Mount Vernon, 339. 

Catholic missionaries the pioneer writers 
of American travels, 37. 

Channing, William Ellery, 436 ; his influ- 
ence on free institutions in America, 
437. 

Ch.arlevoix, P. F. X., travels in Canada 
and the Northwest, 47 ; his letters, 49; 
account of New England and other 
British provinces, 49 ; description of the 
Missouri and Mississippi, 50 ; review of 
the scene of his labors, 51 ; his " Ilis- 
toire de la Nouvelle France," 57. 

Chastellux, Marquis de, .58; a friend of 
Washington, 59; his "Voyages dans 
I'Amerique Septentrionale,60 ;" romance 
of his style and comparisons, 00 ; opin- 
ions of his writings, 61 ; his " Travels " 
translated into English, 61 ; justness of 
his criticisms, 62 ; visits Providence, 
R. I., 63; Hartford, 04; sketch of Gov. 
Trumbull, 64 ; visits the Hudson High- 
lands, 65; interview with Washington 
and his oiiicers, 65 ; visits Philadelphia, 
66 ; Mrs. Baehe, 66 ; Robert Morris, 66 ; 
social customs of Frenchmen and Qua- 
kers compared, 06 ; his description of 
Northern New York, 67 ; Journey into 
Virginia, 68 : describes Jefi'erson, 69 ; 
minuteness of his observation, 71 ; traits 
of different sections, 72 ; visits Ports- 
mouth, N. H., 73; attends a ball at 
Boston, and describes the " prettiest of 
the women dancers," 74 ; other Boston 
celebrities, 74 ; takes leave of Washing- 
ton at Newburgh, 74 ; his description oif 
Washington, 75 ; translates Col. Hum- 



INDEX. 



455 



phrey'8 "Address to the American Ar- 
mies," 7G. 

Chfiteaubriand visits the United States, 
118 ; visits Washington, 119 ; impressed 
with American scenery, 120. 

Children, American, Anthony Trollope 
on the precocity of, 239. 

Civilization, natural features of America 
conduce to the spread of, 15. 

Cleveland, Morris, his visit to Ohio from 
New England in 1796, 400. 

Clinton, Di- "Witt, his " Letters of Hiber- 
nicus," 404 ; his exploration of Western 
New York, 405 ; impressed with the ne- 
cessity and feasibility of a great canal, 
408 ; realization of his project, 410. 

Cobbett, William, 208 ; praises farm life in 
America, 209; his bluntness, egotism, 
and radicalism, JIO ; Heine's apostrophe 
to, 211. 

Cobden, Richard, his opinion of the Lon- 
don 7Vme«, 291. 

CoUinson, Peter, his opinion of John Bar- 
tram, 374. 

Columbus, Christopher, familiar with the 
writings of Petrus de Alyaco, 23. 

Commemorative Addresses, 421. 

Congress, Coptinental, Jacob Duohe, 
chaplain of, 81. 

Connecticut, a glimpse of, in Washing- 
ton's Diary, in^l789, 419. 

Cooper, J. Fenimore, his romances com- 
pared with those of Scott, 288 ; endea- 
vors to censure and counsel, 413 ; Ilal- 
leck's lines on, 414 ; accuracy of his 
descriptions, 430. 

Cooper, Thomas, 197; his opinions of 
America, 198. 

Coxc, Tench, Ins " View of the United 
States of America," 393. 

Crevecccur H. St. John, settles in New 
York in 1754, 89 ; Hazlitt's opinion of his 
work, 89 ; his misfortunes, 90 ; his " Let- 
ters of an American Farmer,"' 90 ; taste 
for rural life, 92 ; birds, 92 ; his human- 
ity rewarded, 93. 

DABLON, Father, superior of the Otta- 
wa Mission, 44. 

Davis, John, 200 ; his " Travels in the 
United States," 201. 

De Bry, " Voyages and Travels to Amer- 
ica," 23. 

Deceptions practised upon travellers in 
America, 341. 

DePradt, '■ L' Europe et 1" Amerique," 149. 

Dickens, Charles, 221; his remarks on 
American slavery, 221 ; ridicules Eng- 
lish writers on America in " Pickwick," 
264. 

Domenech, Abhe Em., his " Seven Years' 
Residence in the Great American Des- 
erts" ridiculed I'y a London joiu'nal, 6. 

Douglass, Dr. William, his work on the 
" British Settlements in North America, 
183 ; Adam Smith's opinion of him, 185. 

Duche, Jacob, remarks of, on America 
before the Revolution, 81 ; treachery of, 
81. 

Duval, Jules, his opinion of the advan- 
tages of emigration, 283. 



Dwight, Timothy, " Travels in New Eng- 
land and New York," 390 ; Robert 
Southey's opinion of his " Travels" in 
the Quurierlij lievieir, 392. 

EARLY discoverers and explorers of 
America, 13. 

Early travellers, accounts of, most to he 
preferred, 1. 

Eddis, William, " Letters from America," 
186. 

Education, Anthony TroVlope's opinion of 
the American system of, 2S6. 

Elliot, Kev. Jared, becomes acquainted 
with Bishop Berkeley, 167. 

Emigrants, European, ft-eedom of action 
enjoyed by, in America, 440. 

English abuse of America, 252 ; their ig- 
norance of America before the Revolu- 
tion, 254. 

English and French writers on the War 
for the Union contrasted, 153. 

English, hrutality of the, 281 ; their want 
of consideration for woman, 282; the 
debasement of their poor, 282 ; furnish 
frequent subjects for caricature, 284 ; 
their ridicule of Yankeeisms, 2S6 ; Miv. 
Brownii'g on the illiberality of the^ 290 ; 
Voltaire's comparison of the, 290 ; 
change of feeling of Americans toward 
the, 291. 

English periodicals, misrepresentations of, 
260. 

Eiiglii^h publisher, venality of an, 260. 

European Governments, facilities oft'ered 
by, for the difl'usion of knowledge re- 
lating to early explorations, 26 ; writers, 
northern, 293 ; French literature in, 293. 

Everett, Edward, his opinion of Cap- 
tain Basil Hall's book, 200; visit of 
John G. Kohl to, 318 ; his Addresses, 
429. 

Expeditions, U. S. Government, 418. 

Eyma, Xavier, "Vie dans le Noveau 
Monde," 151. 

FAUX, an English farmer, 222 ; his ab- 
surd calumnies, 223. 

Fearon, Henry B., Sydnej' Smith's opinion 
of, 200. 

Female writers, British, on America, 222. 

Fiddler, Rev. Isaac, remarks of Xorth 
American Review on his " Observa- 
tions," 201. 

Fisch, Georges, " Les ;fetats Unls en 
1861," 149 ; first impressions of New 
York, 150; opinion of H. W. Beccher, 
151; religion, art, etc., 151. 

Flint, Timothy, 401 ; his pictures of tho 
West, 402 ; his " History and Geography 
of the Mississippi Valley,'' 403 ; opinion 
of the London Quarterly upon, 404. 

Florida, a paradise for the naturalist, 379 ; 
explored by John Bartram, 379. 

Force, Peter, writings and compilations 
of, 36; a collector of works relating to 
America, 318. 

Foster, John R., translates Peter Kalm'o 
" Travels in North America," 295. 

French and Americans, cause of their af- 
finity, 153. 



456 



INDEX. 



French and English writers on the "War 
for the Union contrasted, 153. 

French economical woi ks on America, 146. 

French missionaries the initiators of travel 
literature in the New "World, 24; ex- 
plorations of, 37. 

French Protestant clergy, hooks of, on 
United States, 149. 

French travellers and writers, 58. 

French writers on America, their supe- 
rior candor, 269. 

Frenchmen, American opinions of, de- 
scribed by L' Abbe Robin, 79 ; eminent, 
address of, to loyal Americans, 154. 

Fnrstenwather. Baron, first impressions on 
America, 303. 

r\ ALE, Ludwig, " My Emigration to the 

U United States," 306. 

Gasparin, Count de, his " Uprising of a 
Great People," 153. 

Germans, interest of the, in the United 
States, 301 ; their literature on the 
United States," 302. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, his ignorance of Amer- 
ica, 254. 

Gorges, Fernando, " America Painted to 
the Life," 28 ; his American enterprises, 
29. 

Gorges, Sir Ferdinand, remarks of 'NVin- 
throp and Bancroft on, 29. 

Government e.Npeditions, U. S., 418. 

Grant, Mrs., 170 ; her " Memoirs of an 
American Lady," 171 ; sketch of society 
at Alb.any, 172. 

Grass!, Padre Giovanni, 341 ; his " Notes," 
341 ; extravagant statements of, 341. 

Grattan, Tlios. Colley, " Civilized Amer- 
ica," 229 ; liis animadversions, 230. 

Grund, Francis J., his books on America, 
308 ; hie opinion of the writings of Basil 
Hall and Hamilton, 309 ; business habits 
of Americans, 309; interests of the peo- 
ple connected with the Government, 
310; necessity of concord between Eng- 
land and America, 310. 

Gurowski, Adam, 300 ; his book on Amer- 
ica, 300. 

HAERNE, Le Chanoine de, " La Ques- 
tione Americaine," 301. 

Hakluyt, Richard, 24 ; his works, 25. 

Hall, Capt. Basil, remarks of Edward 
Everett on his book, 2*0 ; criticized by 
Blackwoo(Fs Magazine, 200. 

Hall, James, 411. 

Halleck, Fitz-Greene, lines of, on Cooper, 
414. 

Hamilton, Capt. Thomas, " Men and Man- 
ners in America," 223 ; his prejudices, 
223 ; appreciates natural bea\ity, 223. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his book reviewed 
bj' the London Daily Jfeics, 275 ; his hits 
at British tendency to stagnation, 275 ; 
his romances, 431. 

Hazlitt, Wm., his opinion of Crevecoeur's 
" Letters i>f an American Farmer," 89. 

Heine' apostrophizes "Wm. Cobbett, 211; 
his estimate of English blockheads, 255 ; 
on the exultation of the English at dis- 
eensions in America, 267. 



Hennepin, Louis, 39 ; explores the Mis- 
sissippi, 40 ; returns to France, and in 
1683 publishes his "Descriptions," 41. 

Henry, Alexander, his " Travels and Ad- 
ventures," commended by Chancellor 
Kent, 185. 

Historical romances, American writers of, 
431. 

Histories, local, 426 ; general, 428. 

Hodgson, Adam, 217 ; Jared Sparks's opin- 
ion of his book, 218. 

Hoft'man, Charles Fenno, his " "Winter in 
the West," 416 ; his geniality and versa- 
tility, 416. 

Holland, Si r Henry, on the mutability of 
everything in America, 439. 

Honyman, Rev. James, receives a letter 
from Berkeley, 162. 

Humboldt, Alexander "Von, remarks of 
Prescott on, 19 ; remarks of, on Amer- 
ica, 303. 

ILLINOIS, early history of, 52 ; natural 
features of, 53 ; commercial facilities 
of, 54 ; rapid increase of population In, 
54 ; Jesuit missionaries in, 55 ; Father 
Marest's account of, 56. 

Imlay, Gilbert, 390. 

Immigration, 440. 

" Inciquin the Jesuit's Letters," 394. 

Ingersoll, Charles J., 395. 

Inns, number of, in America, 216 ; Priscil- 
la Wakefield's description of, 216. 

Irving, Washington, remarks on the 
" Imago Mundi" of Pelrue de Alyaco, 
23 ; extract from a letter from Moore to, 
211 ; accounts for the al)URe of English 
writers of travel in the United States, 
258 ; his writings compared with those 
of Addison, 288. 

Italian travellers in America, 334. 

Italy and America alike interesting to 
authors, 2. 

JANSON, C. W., " The Stranger in 

fj America," 218. 

Jeflerson, Thomas, visit of Marquis de 
Chastellux to, 69. 

Jenks, Rev. Wm., D. D., account of Ma- 
doc's "Voyage to America in 1170, 18. 

Jesuits, the, in Illinois. 55. 

Jews, a number of, in Rhode Island, 168. 

Johnson, Rev. Samuel, becomes acquaint- 
ed with Bishop Berkeley, 1G7. 

JosseljTi, John, " New England's Rarities 
Discovered," 32. 

Judd, Sylvester, his " Margaret," 431. 

Juridical literature, 428. 

KALM, Peter, 295 ; his works on Amer- 
ica, 295 : notes of his diary on Phila- 
delphia. 295 ; his picture of Albany in 
1749, 296 : visit to Niagara Falls, 297. 

Kay, Joseph, " Social Condition and Edu- 
cation of the People in England," 283. 

Kemble, Mrs., on ihe affinity between the 
Americans and the French, 153 ; John 
G. Kohl's opinion of, 316. 

Kendall, E. A., " Travels through the 
Northern Parts of the United States," 
206. 



INDEX. 



457 



Kent, Chancellor, commends " Travels and 
Adventures of Alexander Henry," 185. 

Kirkland, Mrs. C. M., her books on the 
"West, 422. 

Knight, Madame, her "Private Journal," 
385 ; her journey from Boston to New 
York, 386. 

Kohl, J. G., " History of Discovery in 
America from Columbus to Franklin," 
36; sketch of his writint's, 311 ; his 
impressions of Boston, 313 ; sketch of 
Mrs. Kemble, 316 ; Edward Everett, 
318; Prcscotl, 320- John Lothrop Mot- 
ley, 321 ; Thomas H. Benton, 322; visit 
to'Newport, 324 ; Bancroft, 324; Sumner, 
325 ; Southern hate of New England, 
326. 

LABOULAYE, Edouard, " Paris dans 
I'Amerique, 153. 

Lafayette, on the necessity of the perpetu- 
ation of the American Union, 11 ; his 
love of the people and institutions of 
America, 148. 

La Salle embarks for Canada in 1675, with 
Father Hennepin, 39 ; explores the great 
lakes, 39 ; gives the name to Louisiana, 
40. 

Lauzun, Duke de, charmed with the so- 
ciety at Newport, 147 

Law, writers on American, 428. 

Lecomte, Col. Ferdinand, " The War in 
the United St.ates," 300. 

Ledercr, John, the first explorer of the 
Alleghaiiies, 32. 

Ledyard, John, 387. 

Lenox, Janus, a collector of books and 
documents relating to America, 318. 

Li'iraric'S, American private, ignorance of 
British writers concerning, 274. 

Lieber, Dr. Francis, 305 ; his " The Stran- 
ger in America," 305. 

Lincoln, Alirahnm. Proclamation of, 448. 

Literature, American, considered beneath 
contempt by British writers fifty years 
ago, 287 : cfa'med to be made up of imi- 
tations of British authors, 287. 

Literature, juridical, 428. 

London Qi(avierly Beriew, its opinion 
of Rev. John Bristed's "America and 
her Resources," 206. 

Lowell, factories of, compared with those 
of Manchester, Eng , by Anthony Trol- 
lope, 237. 

MADOC, Rev. Wm. Jenks's account 
of his voyage to America in 1170, 18. 

Marbois, 388 ; "his "Notes on Virginia," 389. 

Marest, Father, travels in Illinois, 56. 

Marquette and Jolict, explorations of, 45 ; 
death of Father M;irquette, 45. 

Martineau, Harriet, 224 ; her fairness as a 
writer, 224 ; Blackicood' s opinion of her 
book, 225. 

Mather, Cotton, " Magnalia Christi Amer- 
icana," 7, 33. 

McSparren, Rev. Janiee, letters of, 170. 

Meier, K., " To the Sacramento," 300. 

Menard, Father R<?ne, plans an expedition 
in search of, the Mississippi in 1660, 44. 

20 



Michaux, Dr. F. A., visits the country 
west of the AUeghanies in 1802, 121 ; his 
descriptions of natural productions, 

121 ; passion of Western people forspir- 
itui'us liquors, 122. 

Michelet, his opinion of America, 265. 

Montalenibert, discourse in the French 
Academy on America, 10. 

Moore, Thomas, projects emigrating to 
America, 211 ; extract of letter from, to 
Washington Irving, 211 ; arrives at Nor- 
folk, Va., 213 ; meets Jefi'erson at Wash- 
ington, 213 ; his remarks on New York 
scenery, 213 ; his prejudices regarding 
America, 214. 

Morris, Robert, description of, by Marquis 
de Chastellux, 66. 

Motlev, John Lothrop, John G. Kohl's 
sketch of, 321. 

Mount Vernon, visit of Luigi Castiglione 
to, 339. 

Murat, Achille, settles in Tallahassee, Fla., 

122 ; his work on the United States, 123 ; 
his pro-slavery ideas, 124. 

NATURAL features of America con- 
duce to the spread of civilization, 15. 

Naturalists, interest of America to, 295. 

Neal, John, writes articles on America 
for Blaclnroo(Vs Jilagdzhir, 396. 

New England, religious character of her 
primitive annals, 24 ; t^trict observance 
of the Sabbath in, 178 ; Southern hate of, 
326. 

Newfoundland, fisheries of, long the only 
attraction to European adventure, 21. 

New Netherlands, Van der Dock's ac- 
count of, in 1659, 27. 

Newport, R. I., its society attractive to 
French officers. 148 ; Bishop Berkeley 
arrives at. 1C3 ; Berkeley's discription of, 
164 ; Dr Burnaby's remarks on the com- 
merce of, 175 ; sketch of, by John G. 
Kohl, 324. 

New World, the effects of its discovery 
and settlement upon maritime progress 
and interests, 22. 

New York Bay, Verrazzano's description 
of. 338. 

New York, Northern, described by Mar- 
quis de Chastellux, 67 ; sketch of, by 
Brissot in 1788, 87 ; varied nationalities 
represented in, 440. 

Niagara Falls, visit of Peter Kalm to, 297. 

North America, continent of, its extent 
and area, 15 ; its climate, soil, and pro- 
ductions adapted to the tastes and wants 
of European emigrants, 15; its produc- 
tions confounded with those of South 
America by ignorant Europeans, 22; a 
refuiie from persecution in early colonial 
times. 193. 

North American Review, remarks of the, 
on Rev. Isaac Fiddler's "Observations," 
201 ; exposes the ii;norance of British 
writers on Atnerica, 262. 

OLMSTED, Frederick Law, his tra\el8 
in the South, 417. 
Opportunity the characteristic distinclion 
of America, 446. 



458 



INDEX. 



Orators, American, 429. 
Oswego, John Bartram's description of, 
377. 

PALMETTO tree, description of, by 
Priscilla Wakefield, 216. 

Pauldins;, Jnmes K., " Letters from the 
Soutli," 398 ; description of Virginia and 
its people, G99 ; his "John Bull in Amer- 
ica," 400. 

Peabody, George, his gift to the London 
working class, 280. 

Plricliin, Mr., one of the first settlers of 
Springfield, Mass., 29. 

Pis;ini, Lieut.-Col. Ferri, 305 •. his impres- 
sions on the patriotism of the American 
people, 366 ; visits the Union and Rebel 
armies, 369 ; pleased with Bocton audits 
society, 370. 

Poets, American, 433. 

Political treatises, American, 42S. 

Portsmouth, N. H., visit of Marquis de 
Chastellux to, 73. 

Prentice, Archibald, " A Tour in the Uni- 
ted States," 245 ; his appreciation of 
American character, 246 ; compares 
American to Kcotoh scenery, 246 ; Amer- 
ican dislike to " John Bull," 247. 

Prescott,William H.,sketchof, by John G. 
Eohl, 820. 

Press, the Paris, on the "War for the 
Union, 152; the British, its general un- 
fairness on the American question, 244 ; 
the British, blinded by self-love in dis- 
cussing American institutions, 280. 

Primitive inhabitants of America, conjec- 
tures in regard to the, 17. 

Providence, 11. I., sketch of, by Marquis de 
Chastellux, 62. 

Purchas, Rev. Samuel, 25. 



UAKERS, prevalence of in Rhode 
Island, 168. 



Q 



T)AFN, Carl Christain, claims the dis- 

It covery of America by the Scandi- 
navians in the tenth century, 18 ; his 
" JSTorthern Antiquities," 294. 

Raumcr, Freidrich von, " America and the 
American People," 304. 

Raynal, the Abbe, writings of, on Ameri- 
ca, 107. 

Rebellion, the Slaveholders', literature 
arising from, 8 ; Anthony Trollope's 
view of, 242. 

Reference, American works of, 427. 

Religious Annals of America, 426. 

Religious sects in America, writers on, 426. 

Revue des Deux Mondes, the, on French 
disinterestedness, 272. 

Rhode Island, Bishop Berkeley settles in, 
168; religious toleration in, 168; preva- 
lence of Quakers in, 168 ; Jews in, 168 ; 
Dr. Burnaby's opinion of the people of, 
175; Major Robert Rogers's opinon of,181. 

Ritter, Prof. Carl, " Geographical Stud- 
ies," l.'i. 

Robin, L'Abbe, describes Boston in 1781, 
76 ; customs of its people, 77 ; its com- 
merce, 78 ; American ideas of French- 
men, 79. 



Robinson, Mrs. (Talvi), 329. 

Rochambeau, Count, arrives at Newport, 
R, I., in 1780, 111 ; his " Memoires," 111; 
opinion of American women, 112 ; de- 
scrijition of a settlement, 112 ; church 
and state in America, 113 ; popular re- 
spect for law, 113 ; is impressed with the 
patriotism of the people, 114. 

Rochcfoucault, Duke de La, visits 
America, 94; his minuteness of detail, 
95 ; traits of American character, 96. 

Rogers, Major Robert, 181 ; his opinion of 
people of Rhode Island, 181. 

Romances, American historical, 431. 

Rnppius,Otto,. the novels of, on the United 
States, 310. 

Rusti, Richard, on the fall of the naval su- 
premacy of Great Britain, 255. 

QABBATn, strict observance of tlve, in 

U New England, 178. 

Salvatore Abbate e Migliori, 362. 

San Domingo, connection of Columbus 
with, 20. 

Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Bernhard, Duke 
of, his "Travels in North America," 304. 

Scenery and local features of America, 
writers on the, 434. 

Schafl:', Dr. Philip, 330 ; his " Sketch of the 
Political, Social, and Religious Character 
of the United States," 330 ; respect for 
law in America, 332 ; relation of Ameri- 
ca to Europe, 333. 

Schultz, Christian, "Travels," 306; hie de- 
scription of locomotive facilities in the 
United States in 1807-'8, 300. 

Science, American writers on the various 
branches of, 435. 

Scotch writers on America, 245. 

Seatsfield, Charles, novels of, on the Unit- 
ed States, 310. 

Sects, religious, writers on, in America, 
426. 

Segur, Count, arrives in America in 1783, 
115 ; becomes attached to the Quakers 
of Philadelphia, 116 ; is favorably im- 
pressed with the American people, 116 ; 
dines with Washington, 116 ; prophetic 
significance of his observations on the 
future of America, 117 ; his remarks on 
embarking for the West Indies, 117. 

Sicily, ignorance of its people concerning 
America, 361. 

Slavery, American, Dickens's rem.arks on, 
201 ; its debasing and brutalizing influ- 
ence, 447. 

Smibert, the painter, embarks for Amer- 
ica with Bi.<hop Berkeley, 160 ; paints 
portraits of Berkeley anil his family, 
160 ; Horace Walpole's opinion of, 160 ; 
his contributions to art in New England, 
160 ; Berkeley's lasting regard for, 161 ; 
notices identity of race between Narra- 
ganset Indian's and Siberian Tartars, 
167. 

Smith, Captain John, his explorations in 
America, 27 ; his writings on America, 
28. 

Smith, Sydney, his opinion of Henry B. 
Fearon, 200. 

Smythe, J. F. D., his "Tour in the United 



INDEX. 



459 



states of America, 188 ; his opinion of 
Washington, 191 ; views of Americans, 
192. 

Smythe, Prof., remarks on the collections 
of Ilakluyt and Purchas, 26. 

Society, Northern European writers on, in 
the United States, 307. 

Southern hate of New England, 326. 

Southey, Rebert, his opinion of Timothy 
Dwight's " Travels," 392. 

Spanish and Portuttuese the pioneers in 
voyaginer westward, 21. 

SpringlielJ, Mass., account of the first set- 
tlement of, 29 ; its appearance in 1645, 30. 

Statistical works, American, 427. 

Stirling, Jame.s, " Letters from the Slave 
States," 217 ; respect and affection duo 
from England to America, 250. 

Sumner, Charles, visited by John G. Kohl, 
325. 

Sweden, writers of, on America, 293 ; colo- 
ny of, on the Delaware, 297. 

TALLEYRAND, his opinion of Amer- 
ican backwoodsmen, 114. 

Theology, writers on, in America, 433. 

7'imes, the London, its inimical spirit to- 
ward America, 291; Cobden's opinion of, 
291. 

Tocqueville, Alexis De, sent to Amer- 
ica in 1830, 129 ; his " Democracy in 
America," 130 ; his philosophical view 
of American institutions, 132 ; his death, 
134 ; notices a similarity of American 
tastes and habits, whether in the city or 
the wilderness, 136 ; his idea of State 
sovereignty, 138 ; considers the probable 
future supremacy of America and Rus- 
sia over each half of the globe, 139 ; on 
English selfishness, 208 ; remarks on re- 
ligion in America, 270 ; English opinion 
of his writings on America, 272. 

Toleration in America the source of its 
attraction to foreign exiles, 7. 

Travel, books of, enduring in interest, 1 ; 
general sameness of writings of,in Amer- 
ica, 4 ; miscellaneous French works of, 
on America, 146, 147. 

Trollope, Anthony, 232; his "North 
America," 232 ; his candor as a writer, 
232 ; his ignorance of previous writings 
on America, 234 ; his egotism, 234 ; im- 
pressed with the beauty of American 
scenery, 236 ; education and labor in the 
United States and England contrasted, 
236 ; dislikes " Young America," 238 ; 
American women met in public convey- 
ances, 239 : spoiled children, 239; versa- 
tility of tne Americans, 240 ; mania of 
Americans for travel, 241 ; opinion of 
the rebellion, 241. 

Trollope, Mrs., 225 ; her '• Domestic Man- 
ners of tho Americans," 225 ; her pow- 
ers of observation, 225 ; superficiality of 
her judgment, 226 ; is pleased with 
American scenery, 228 ; her want of 
discrimination, 228. 

Tudor, William, " Letters from the East- 
ern States," 412. 

Turrel, Jane, "An Invitation to the Coun- 
try," 33. 



UNION, the war for the, changes of 
opinion wrought by, 447 ; its influ- 
ence on society, 448. 
United States, the earliest descriptions and 
associations connected with its territory 
tinctured with tradition, 19 ; extent of 
the, 276 ; John Bright on the strength 
of the Government of the, 449. 

YAN DER DOCK'S account of New 
Netherlands in 1659, 27. 

Verrazzano, 338 ; his description of New 
York B.ay in 1524, 338. 

Virginia, the name given to the Jamestown 
colony, 21; provincial egotism of, 30; 
journey of Marquis de Chastellux into, 
68; the people of, described by Rev. An- 
drew Burnaby, 173 ; number of early 
descriptions of, 397 ; its associations, 
397. 

Volney, C. F., work of, on America, 97 ; 
his early passion fur travel, 98 ; a victim 
of the French Revolution, 99 ; his phi- 
losophy, 100; dilliculties as an emi- 
grant, 101 ; his death, 101 ; review of 
his life and writings, 102 ; recollections 
of by Dr. Francis of New York, 105 ; 
his visit to Warrentown, 105 ; scientific 
vein of his writings, 106. 

Voltaire,hi8 comparison of the English,290. 

WAKEFIELD, Priscilla, her com- 
pilation from the works of 
early writers on America, 215 ; de- 
scription of the Palmetto Royal, 
216 ; number of inns met with in 
America, and independence of inn- 
keepers, 216. 

Walpole, Horace, his opinion of Bishop 
Berkeley's scheme, 158 ; his sketch of 
Smibert, the painter, 160. 

Walsh, Robert, 385 ; his " Appeal," 395. 

Wansey, Henry, 194 ; his " Excursion to 
the United States," 194 ; breakfasts with 
Washington at Philadelphia, 194 ; his 
impressions of Washington, 194 ; re- 
marks the general contentment of tho 
people, 195 ; journeys through New En- 
gland, 195 ; meets distinguished persons 
at New York, 196. 

Washington, George, first interview of 
Marquis de Chastellux with, 65 ; takes 
leave of De Chastellux at Newburgh, 74; 
described by De Chastellux, 75 ; visited 
by Brissot de Warville at Mount Ver- 
non, 85 ; J. F. D. Smythe's opinion of, 
191 ; breakfasts with Henry Wansey, 
194 ; his opinion of Count Adriani's 
hook, 340 ; a glimpse of Coimecticut, 
419 ; visits Boston, 421. 

Webster, Daniel, imperieh.ibility of the 
record of his eloquence, 429. 

Weld, Isaac, "Travels in America," 207. 

Welsh, the, claim to be early explorers ol 
America, 17. 

Western travel and adventure, books of, 
422. 

Wheaton, Henry, " History of the North- 
men," 19. 

White, Rev. James, on British prejudices, 
268. 



460 



INDEX. 



Wied, Prince Maximilian von, "Journey 
through America," 305. 

Williams, linger, liberal spirit of, 168. 

Wilson, Alexander, 199 ; his " American 
Oriiitholoa-y," 199. 

Winterbothani, his authorities in compi- 
ling his " View of the United State.'?," 3. 

Wliithrop, John, journal of, 31 ; on the de- 
basement of the poor in England, 282. 

Wirt,"Wm., "Letters of a British Spy," 412. 

Women, American, Anthony TroUope's 
remarks on, 239. 



Wood, William, " New England Pros- 
pect," 32. 

YALE College, gifts of Bishop Berke- 
ley to, 167. 

ZENGER, John V., printer of the New 
York Wee/cl-t/ Journal, narrative of 
his trial for libel, 7. 
Zimmerman, E. A. W., " France and the 
Free States of North America," 306. 



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